
Book .fii 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



^ 



HtDetr^ttie oEtiitton 



POEMS 



BEING VOLUME IX. 

OF 

EMERSON'S COMPLETE WORKS 



? 





(A^ 



POEMS 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



Bm anU Eebifiicti ©Uttion 








BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street, 






Copyright, 1867 and 1876, 
By RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Copyright, 1883 and 1895, 
By EDWARD W. EMERSON. 

AH rights reserved, 

2d. COPY 

SUPPLIED FROM 

COPYRIGHT FILES 

JANUARY. \f\\. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3Iass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



i' 

I 

^ PEEFATORY NOTE. 



This volume contains nearly all the pieces included 
in the Poems and May-Day of former editions. In 
1876, Mr. Emerson published a selection from his 
Poems, adding six new ones, and omitting many.-'^ Of 
those omitted, several are now restored, in accordance 
with the expressed wishes of many readers and lovers of 
them. Also, some pieces never before published are 
here given in an Appendix ; on various grounds. Some 
of them appear to have had Mr. Emerson's approval, 
but to have been withheld because they were unfin- 
ished. These it seemed best not to suppress, now that 
they can never receive their completion. Others, mostly 
of an early date, remained unpublished doubtless be- 
cause of their personal and private nature. Some of 
these seem to have an autobiographic interest suffi- 
cient to justify their publication. Others again, often 
mere fragments, have been admitted as characteristic 
or as expressing in poetic form thoughts found in the 
Essays. 

In coming to a decision in these cases it seemed on 
1 Selected Poems : Little Classic Edition. 



vi PREFATORY NOTE. 

the whole preferable to take the risk of including too 
much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task 
of further winnowing to the hands of Time. 

As was stated in the preface to the first volume of 
this edition of Mr. Emerson's writings, the readings 
adopted by him in the Selected Poems have not always 
been followed here, but in some cases preference has 
been given to "corrections made by him when he was 
in fuller strength than at the time of the last revision. 

A change in the arrangement of the stanzas of 
" May-Day," in the part representative of the march 
of Spring, received his sanction as bringing them more 
nearly in accordance with the events in Nature. 

J. E. CABOT. 



COTNf TENTS. 



Prefatory Note v 

I. 

POEMS. 

PAGS 

The Sphinx 9 

Each and All .... .... 14 

The Problem 15 

To Rhea 18 

The Visit .20 

Uriel 21 

The World-Soul 23 

Alphonso of Castile .27 

Mithridates . .30 

To J. W 31 

Destiny 32 

Guy . 33 

Hamatreya 35 

Earth-Sono . . . o 36 

Good-Bye 37 

The Rhodora ..,'... 39 

The Humble-Bee 39 

Berrying 41 

The Snow-Storm 42 



2 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

woodnotes, i 43 

woodnotes, ii. .48 

monadnoc 58 

Fable 71 

Ode o . . . . . 71 

ASTR^A 75 

Etienne de La Boece 76 

Compensation .77 

Forbearance 78 

The Park 78 

Forerunners , . 79 

sursum corda 80 

Ode to Beauty ........ 81 

Give All to Love ........ 84 

To Ellen 86 

To Eva ... 87 

The Amulet . . 88 

Thine Eyes Still Shined 88 

Eros 89 

Hermione 89 

Initial, DiEMONic, and Celestial Love. 

I. The Initial Love ...... 92 

II. The Demonic Love 97 

III. The Celestial Love 101 

The Apology 105 

Merlin, 1 106 

Merlin, II 109 

Bacchus Ill 

Merops 113 

Saadi 114 

Holidays , » • . 119 

Xenophanes 120 



CONTENTS, 3 

The Day's Ration 121 

Blight . 122 

musketaquid 124 

Dirge . . . 127 

Threnody . . .130 

CoxcoRD Hymn, Sung at the Completion of the 

Battle Monument, April 19, 1836 . . . . 139 

II. 
MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES. 

May-Day 143 

The Adirondacs . . . . . . . .159 

Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces. 

Brahma 170 

Fate 171 

Freedom 172 

Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857 173 

Boston Hymn 174 

Voluntaries 178 

Boston 182 

Letters 188 

Rubies 188 

The Test 189 

Solution 189 

Hymn o . . . . 192 

Nature and Life. 

Nature, 1 193 

Nature, II . . 194 

The Romany Girl 195 

Days 196 

The Chartist's Complaint 197 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

My Garden 197 

The Titmouse 200 

The Harp . , 203 

Sea-Shore 207 

Song of Nature . 209 

Two Rivers 213 

Waldeinsamkeit 214 

Terminus 216 

The Nun's Aspiration 217 

April . 219 

Maiden Speech of the ^olian Harp . . . 220 

CupiDO 221 

The Past 221 

The Last Farewell 222 

In Memoriam 224 

Elements. 

Experience 228 

Compensation. 229 

Politics 230 

Heroism 231 

Character 231 

Culture 232 

Friendship 232 

Beauty 233 

Manners 234 

Art 235 

Spiritual Laws 236 

Unity 236 

Worship . . 237 

Quatrains 238 

Translations . 244 



\ 



CONTENTS. 5 

in. 

-APPENDIX. 

PAGB 

The Poet ii53 

Pragmekts on the Poet akd the Poetic Gift 263 

Fragments on Nature and Life .... 278 

The Bohemian Hymn 298 

Pkater 299 

Grace , .... 299 

Eros . . . . . . . . . . . 300 

Lines Written in Naples, 1833 300 

Lines Written in Rome, 1883 301 

Peter's Field . . ..... 302 

The Walk 304 

May Morning ... .... •304 

The Miracle . . 305 

The Waterfall » . , 307 

Walden , « 307 

Pan . , 309 

MONADNOC FROM AfAR 310 

The South Wind 310 

Fame 311 

Webster 312 

Lines Written in a Volume of Goethe . . . 313 

The Enchanter 313 

Philosopher 314 

Limits 314 

Inscuiption for a Well in Memory of the Martyrs 

of the War 315 

The Exilb • • 315 



L 

rOEMS. 



POEMS. 



THE SPHINX. 

The Sphinx is drowsy, 

Her wings are furled: 
Her ear is heavy, 

She broods on the world. 
" Who 'U tell me my secret, 

The ages have kept ? — 
I awaited the seer 

While they slumbered and slept: 

**The fate of the man-child, 

The meaning of man; 
Known fruit of the unknown | 

Daedahan plan; 
Out of sleeping a waking, 

Out of waking a sleep ; 
Life death overtaking ; 

Deep miderneath deep ? 

** Erect as a sunbeam, 

Upspringeth the palm; 
The elephant browses, 

Undaunted and calm; 



10 THE SPHINX, 

In beautiful motion 

The thrush plies his wings ; 

Kind leaves of his covert, 
Your silence he sings. 

" The waves, unashamed. 

In difference sweety, 
Play glad with the breezes, 

Old playfellows meet; 
The journeying atoms, 

Primordial wholes. 
Firmly draw, firmly drive, 

By their animate poles. 

" Sea, earth, air, sound, silence, 

Plant, quadruped, bird. 
By one music enchanted. 

One deity stirred, — 
Each the other adorning, 

Accompany still ; 
Night veileth the morning, 

The vapor the hill. 

" The babe by its mother 

Lies bathed in joy; 
Glide its hours uncounted,— 

The sun is its toy ; 
Shines the peace of all being, 

Without cloud, in its eyes; 
And the sum cf the world 

In soft miniature lies. 

*^But man crouches and blushes. 
Absconds and conceals; 



THE SPHINX. 11 

He creepeth and peepeth, 

He palters and steals ; 
Infirm, melancholy, 

Jealous glancing around, 
An oaf, an accomplice, 

He poisons the ground. 

"Out spoke the great mother, 

Beholding his fear ; — 
At the sound of her accents 

Cold shuddered the sphere : — . 
*Who has drugged my boy's cup? 

Who has mixed my boy's bread? 
Who, with sadness and madness. 

Has turned my child's head ? ' " 

I heard a poet answer 

Aloud and cheerfully, 
" Say on, sweet Sphinx ! thy dirges 

Are pleasant songs to me- 
Deep love lieth under 

These pictures of time; 
They fade in the light of 

Their meaning sublime. 

" The fiend that man harries 

Is love of the Best ; 
Yawns the pit of the Dragon, 

Lit by rays from the Blest. 
The Lethe of Nature 

Can't trance him again, 
Whose soul sees the perfect, 

Which his eyes seek in vain. 



12 THE SPHINX. 

** To vision prof ounder, 

Man's spirit must dive ; 
His aye-rolling orb 

At no goal will arrive ; 
The heavens that now draw him 

With sweetness untold, 
Once found, — for new heavens 

He spurneth the old. 

" Pride ruined the angels, 

Their shame them restores ; 
Lurks the joy that is sweetest 

In stings of remorse. 
Have I a lover 

Who is noble and free ? — 
I would he were nobler 

Than to love me. 

**Eterne alternation 

Now follows, now flies ; 
And under pain, pleasure, — 

Under pleasure, pain lies. 
Love works at the centre, 

Heart-heaving alway; 
Forth speed the strong pulses 

To the borders of day. 

^^ Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits ; 

Thy sight is growing blear ; 
Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx, 

Her muddy eyes to clear ! " 
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip, — 

Said, " Who taught thee me to name ? 



THE SPHINX. 13 

I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow, 
Of thine eye I am eyebeam. 

" Thou art the unanswered question ; 

Couldst see thy proper eye, 
Alway it asketh, asketh; 

And each answer is a lie. 
350 take thy quest through nature, 

It through thousand natures ply : 
Ask on, thou clothed eternity ; 

Time is the false reply." 

Uprose the merry Sphinx, 

And crouched no more in stone ; 
She melted into purple cloud, 

She silvered in the moon ; 
She spired into a yellow flame; 

She flowered in blossoms red ; 
She flowed into a foaming wave; 

She stood Monadnoc's head. 

Thorough a thousand voices 

Spoke the universal dame ; 
**Who telleth one of my meaningSj 

Is master of all I am." "^-^ 



14 EACH AND ALL, 



EACH AND ALL. 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clowe 

Of thee from the hill-top looking down; 

The heifer that lows in the upland farm, 

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; 

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon. 

Deems not that great Napoleon 

Stops his horse, and lists with delight. 

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 

Nor knowest thou what argument 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. 

All are needed by each one ; 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 

Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 

I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; 

He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 

For I did not bring home the river and sky ; •— 

He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 

The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 

The bubbles of the latest wave 

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave. 

And the bellowing of the savage sea 

Greeted their safe escape to me. 

I wiped away the weeds and foam, 

I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; 

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 

Had left their beauty on the shore 

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproaro 

The lover watched his graceful maid, 

As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 

Nor knew her beauty's best attire 



THE PROBLEM. 15 

Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 

At last she came to his hermitage, 

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage ; — = 

The gay enchantment was undone, 

A gentle wife, but fairy none. 

Then I said, ' I covet truth ; 

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat ; 

I leave it behind with the games of youth : ' — 

As I spoke, beneath my feet 

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, 

Running over the club-moss burrs; 

I inhaled the violet's breath ; 

Around me stood the oaks and firs ; 

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground 5 

Over me soared the eternal sky. 

Full of light and of deity ; 

Again I saw, again I heard, 

The rolling river, the morning bird ; — 

Beauty through my senses stole ; 

I yielded myself to the perfect whole. 



THE PROBLEM. 

I LIKE a church ; I like a cowl ; 

I love a prophet of the soul ; 

And on my heart monastic aisles 

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles \ 

Yet not for all his faith can see 

Would I that cowled churchman be. 

Why should the vest on him allure, 
Which I could not on me endure ? 



16 THE PROBLEM. 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 

His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 

Never from lips of cunning fell 

The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 

Out from the heart of nature rolled 

The burdens of the Bible old ; 

The litanies of nations came, 

Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 

Up from the burning core below, — 

The canticles of love and woe : 

The hand that rounded Peter's dome 

And groined the aisles of Christiaji Rome 

Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 

Himself from God he could not free; 

He builded better than he knew ; — 

The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 

Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? 

Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 

Painting with morn each annual cell? 

Or how the sacred pine-tree adds 

To her old leaves new myriads ? 

Such and so grew these holy piles. 

Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 

As the best gem upon her zone. 

And Morning opes with haste her lids 

To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, 

As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 

For out of Thought's interior sphere 

These wonders rose to upper air; 



THE PROBLEM. H 

And Nature gladly gave them place, 
Adopted them into her race, 
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat. 

These temples grew as grows the grass; 

Art might obey, but not surpass. 

The passive Master lent his hand 

To the vast soul that o'er him planned ; 

And the same power that reared the shrine 

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 

Ever the fiery Pentecost 

Girds with one flame the countless host, 

Trances the heart through chanting choirs, 

And through the priest the mind inspires. 

The word unto the prophet spoken 

Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 

The word by seers or sibyls told, 

In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 

Still floats upon the morning wind. 

Still whispers to the willing mind. 

One accent of the Holy Ghost 

The heedless world hath never lost. 

I know what say the fathers wise, — 

The Book itself before me lies, 

Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 

And he who blent both in his Hne, 

The younger Golden Lips or mines, 

Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines. 

His words are music in my ear, 

I see his cowled portrait dear; 

And yet, for all his faith could see, 

I would not the good bishop be. 



18 TO RHEA. 



TO RHEA. 



Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes, 
Not with flatteries, but truths, 
Which tarnish not, but purify- 
To light which dims the morning's eye. 
I have come from the spring-woods, 
From the fragrant solitudes ; — 
Listen what the poplar-tree 
And murmuring waters counselled me. 

If with love thy heart has burned ; 
If thy love is unreturned ; 
Hide thy grief within thy breast, 
Though it tear thee unexpressed ; 
For when love has once departed 
From the eyes of the false-hearted,, 
And one by one has torn off quite 
The bandages of purple light ; 
Though thou wert the loveliest 
Form the soul had ever dressed, 
Thou shalt seem, in each reply, 
A vixen to his altered eye ; 
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, 
Thy praying lute will seem to scold ; 
Though thou kept the straightest roadj 
Yet thou errest far and broad. 

But thou shalt do as do the gods 
In their cloudless periods ; 
For of this lore be thou sure, — 
Though thou forget, the gods, secure. 



TO RHEA. 19 

Forget never their command, 
But make the statute of this land. 
As they lead, so foUow all, 
Ever have done, ever shall. 
Warning to the blind and deaf, 
'T is written on the iron leaf, 
Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup 
Loveth downward, and not up ; 
He who loves, of gods or men. 
Shall not by the same be loved again 5 
His sweetheart's idolatry 
Falls, in turn, a new degree. 
When a god is once beguiled 
By beauty of a mortal child 
And by her radiant youth delighted, 
He is not fooled, but warily knoweth 
His love shall never be requited. 
And thus the wise Immortal doeth, — 
'T is his study and delight 
To bless that creature day and night ; 
From all evils to defend her ; 
In her lap to pour all splendor ; 
To ransack earth for riches rare, 
And fetch her stars to deck her hair: 
He mixes music with her thoughts, 
And saddens her with heavenly doubts : 
All grace, all good his great heart knowSj 
Profuse in love, the king bestows. 
Saying, * Hearken ! Earth, Sea, Air ! 
This monument of my despair 
Build I to the All-Good, AU-Fair. 
Not for a private good, 
But I, from my beatitude. 



20 THE VISIT. 

Albeit scorned as none was scorned, 

Adorn her as was none adorned. 

I make this maiden an ensample 

To Nature, through her kingdoms ample. 

Whereby to model newer races, 

Statelier forms and fairer faces; 

To carry man to new degrees 

Of power and of comeliness. 

These presents be the hostages 

Which I pawn for my release. 

See to thyself, O Universe ! 

Thou art better, and not worse.' — 

And the god, having given all, 

Is freed forever from his thrall. 



THE VISIT. 

AsKEST, *How long thou shalt stay?' 

Devastator of the day ! 

Know, each substance and relation, 

Thorough natm-e's operation. 

Hath its unit, bound and metre ; 

And every new compound 

Is some product and repeater,-— 

Product of the earlier found. 

But the unit of the visit. 

The encounter of the wise, — 

Say, what other metre is it 

Than the meeting of the eyes? 

Nature poureth into nature 

Through the channels of that feature. 

Riding on the ray of sight, 



URIEL. 21 

Fleeter far than whirlwinds go. 

Or for service, or delight, 

Hearts to hearts their meaning show, 

Sum their long experience, 

And import intelligence. 

Single look has drained the breast j 

Single moment years confessed. 

The duration of a glance 

Is the term of convenance, 

And, though thy rede be church or state. 

Frugal multiples of that. 

Speeding Saturn cannot halt; 

Linger, — thou shalt rue the fault : 

If Love his moment overstay, 

Hatred's swift repulsions play. 



URIEL. 

It fell in the ancient periods 

Which the brooding soul surveys, 

Or ever the wild Time coined itself 
Into calendar months and days. 

This was the lapse of Uriel, 

Which in Paradise befell. 

Once, among the Pleiads walking, 

Seyd overheard the young gods talking | 

And the treason, too long pent. 

To his ears was evident. 

The young deities discussed 

Laws of form, and metre jusi, 

Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams. 



22 URIEL. 

What subsisteth, and what seems. 

One, with low tones that decide, 

And doubt and reverend use defied^ 

With a look that sol\^ed the sphere, 

And stirred the devils everywhere, 

Gave his sentiment divine 

Against the being of a line. 

' Line in nature is not found ; 

Unit and universe are round ; 

In vain produced, all rays return % 

Evil will bless, and ice will burn/ 

As Uriel spoke with piercing eye, 

A shudder ran around the sky ; 

The stern old war-gods shook their headsj 

The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds; 

Seemed to the holy festival 

The rash word boded ill to all; 

The balance-beam of Fate was bent ; 

The bounds of good and ill were rent; 

Strong Hades could not keep his own, 

But all slid to confusion. 

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell 

On the beauty of Uriel ; 

In heaven once eminent, the god 

Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud 5 

Whether doomed to long gyration 

In the sea of generation, 

Or by knowledge grown too bright 

To hit the nerve of feebler sight. 

Straightway, a forgetting wind 

Stole over the celestial kind. 

And their lips the secret kept, 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 23 

If in ashes the fire-seed slept. 

But now and then, truth-speaking things 

Shamed the angels' veiling wings ; 

And, shrilling from the solar course, 

Or from fruit of chemic force. 

Procession of a soul in matter, 

Or the speeding change of water, 

Or out of the good of evil horn, 

Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn. 

And a blush tinged the upper sky, 

And the gods shook, they knew not why. 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 

Thanks to the morning light. 

Thanks to the foaming sea. 
To the uplands of New Hampshire, 

To the green-haired forest free ; 
Thanks to each man of courage, 

To the maids of holy mind, 
To the boy with his games undaunted 

Who never looks behind. 

Cities of proud hotels. 

Houses of rich and great. 
Vice nestles in your chambers. 

Beneath your roofs of slate. 
It cannot conquer folly, — 

Time-and-space-conquering steam, — 
And the light-outspeeding telegraph 

Bears nothing on its beam. 



24 THE WORLD-SOUL. 

The politics are base ; 

The letters do not cheer ; 
And 'tis far in the deeps of history. 

The voice that speaketh clear. 
Trade and the streets ensnare us, 

Our bodies are weak and worn ; 
We plot and corrupt each other, 

And we despoil the unborn. 

Yet there in the parlor sits 

Some figure of noble guise, — 
Our angel, in a stranger's form, 

Or woman's pleading eyes; 
Or only a flashing sunbeam 

In at the window-pane ; 
Or Music pours on mortals 

Its beautiful disdain. 

The inevitable morning 

Finds them who in cellars be ; 
And be sure the all-loving Nature 

Will smile in a factory. 
Yon ridge of purple landscape, 

Yon sky between the walls. 
Hold all the hidden wonders 

In scanty intervals. 

Alas ! the Sprite that haunts us 
Deceives our rash desire ; 

It whispers of the glorious gods, 
And leaves us in the mire. 

We cannot learn the cipher 
That's writ upon our cell; 



THE WORLD-SOUL. 25 

Stars taunt us by a mystery 
Which we could never spell. 

If but cne hero knew it, 

xhe world would blush in flame i 
The sage, till he hit the secret, 

Would hang his head for shame. 
Our brothers have not read it, 

Not one has found the key ; 
And henceforth we are comforted, — 

We are but such as they. 

Still, still the secret presses ; 

The n earing clouds draw down ; 
The crimson morning flames into 

The fopperies of the town. 
Within, without the idle earth. 

Stars weave eternal rings ; 
The sun himself shines heartily. 

And shares the joy he brings. 

And what if Trade sow cities 

Like shells along the shore, 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad 

With railways ironed o'er ? — 
They are but sailing foam-bells 

Along Thought's causing stream, 
And take their shape and sun-color 

From him that sends the dream. 

For Destiny never swerves. 

Nor yields to men the helm ; 
He shoots his thought, by hidden nerves, 

Throughout the solid realm. 



% THE WORLD-SOUL. 

The patient Daemon sits, 
With roses and a shroud ; 

He has his way, and deals his gifts,-— 
But ours is not allowed. 

He is no churl nor trifler. 

And his viceroy is none, — 
Love-without-weakness, — 

Of Genius sire and son. 
And his will is not thwarted ; 

The seeds of land and sea 
Are the atoms of his body bright, 

And his behest obey. 

He serveth the servant, 

The brave he loves amain ; 
He kills the cripple and the sick, 

And straight begins again ; 
For gods delight in gods. 

And thrust the weak aside; 
To him who scorns their charities 

Their arms fly open wide. 

When the old world is sterile 

And the ages are effete. 
He will from wrecks and sediment 

The fairer world complete. 
He forbids to despair ; 

His cheeks mantle with mirth; 
And the unimagined good of men 

Is yeaning at the birth. 

Spring still makes spring in the mind 
When sixty years are told ; 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 27 

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, 

And we are never old. 
Over the winter glaciers 

I see the summer glow, 
And through the wild-piled snowdrift^ 

The warm rosebuds below. 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 

I, Alphonso, live and learn, 
Seeing Nature go astern. 
Things deteriorate in kind ; 
Lemons run to leaves and rind ; 
Meagre crop of figs and limes ; 
Shorter days and harder times. 
Flowering April cools and dies 
In the insufficient skies. 
Imps, at high midsummer, blot 
Half the sun's disk with a spot; 
'T will not now avail to tan 
Orange cheek or skin of man. 
Roses bleach, the goats are dry, 
Lisbon quakes, the people cry. 
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools. 
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools. 
Are no brothers of my blood ; — 
They discredit Adamhood. 
Eyes of gods ! ye must have seen. 
O'er your ramparts as ye lean, 
The general debility ; 
Of genius the sterility ; 



28 ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 

Mighty projects countermanded; 
Kash ambition, brokenhanded ; 
Puny man and scentless rose 
Tormenting Pan to double the dose. 
Rebuild or ruin : either fill 
Of vital force the wasted rill, 
Or tumble all again in heap 
To weltering chaos and to sleep. 

Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry, 
Which fed the veins of earth and sky, 
That mortals miss the loyal heats, 
Which drove them erst to social feats ; 
Now, to a savage selfness grown, 
Think nature barely serves for one ; 
With science poorly mask their hurt. 
And vex the gods with question pert, 
Immensely curious whether you 
Still are rulers, or mildew ? 

Masters, I 'm in pain with you ; 

Masters, I '11 be plain with you ; 

In my palace of Castile, 

I, a king, for kings cap. feel. 

There my thoughts the matter roll, 

And solve and oft resolve the whole. 

And, for I 'm styled Alphonse the Wise, 

Ye shall not fail for sound advice. 

Before ye want a drop of rain. 

Hear the sentiment of Spain. 

You have tried famine : no more try it ; 
Ply us now with a full diet ; 



ALPHONSO OF CASTILE. 29 

Teach your pupils now with plenty, 

For one sun supply us twenty. 

I have thought it thoroughly over, — 

State of hermit, state of lover ; 

We must have society, 

We cannot spare variety. 

Hear you, then, celestial fellows ! 

Fits not to be overzealous ; 

Steads not to work on the clean jump. 

Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump. 

Men and gods are too extense ; 

Could you slacken and condense ? 

Your rank overgrowths reduce 

Till your kinds abound with juice ? 

Earth, crowded, cries, ' Too many i^aen I * 

My counsel is, kill nine in ten. 

And bestow the shares of all 

On the remnant decimal. 

Add their nine lives to this cat i 

Stuff their nine brains in one hat; 

Make his frame and forces square 

With the labors he must dare ; 

Thatch his flesh, and even his years 

With the marble which he rears. 

There, growing slowly old at ease, 

No faster than his planted trees. 

He may, by warrant of his age, 

In schemes of broader scope engage. 

So shall ye have a man of the sphere 

Fit to grace the solar year. 



30 MITHRIDATES. 



MITHRIDATES. 

I CA:n"NOT spare water or wine, 
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose ; 

From the earth-poles to the line, 
All between that works or grows, 

Every thing is kin of mine," 

Give me agates for my meat ; 
Give me cantharids to eat ; 
From air and ocean bring me foodsy 
From all zones and altitudes ; — 

From all natui'es, sharp and slimy, 
Salt and basalt, wild and tame : 

Tree and lichen, ape, sea-lion, 
Bird, and reptile, be my game. 

Ivy for my fillet band ; 
Blinding dog-wood in my hand ; 
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me, 
And the prussic juice to lull me ; 
Swing me in the upas boughs, 
Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse. 

Too long shut in strait and few, 

Thinly dieted on dew, 

I will use the world, and sift it, 

To a thousand humors shift it, 

As you spin a cherry. 

O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry! 

O all you virtues, methods, mights, 



TO J. W, 31 

Means, appliances, delights, 
Reputed wrongs and braggart rights. 
Smug routine, and things allowed, 
Minorities, things under cloud ! 
Hither ! take me, use me, fill me, 
Vein and artery, though ye kill me I 



TO J. W. 

Set not thy foot on graves ; 

Hear what wine and roses say; 

The mountain chase, the summer waves, 

The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. 

Set not thy foot on graves ; 

Nor seek to unwind the shroud 

Which charitable Time 

And Nature have allowed 

To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. 

Set not thy foot on graves ; 
Care not to strip the dead 
Of his sad ornament, 
His myrrh, and wine, and rings, 

His sheet of lead. 

And trophies buried : 

Go, get them where he earned them when alive i 

As resolutely dig or dive. 

Life is too short to waste 
In critic peep or cynic bark, 



32 DESTINY, 



Quarrel or reprimand: 

'T will soon be dark ; 

Up ! mind thine own aim, and 

God speed the mark ! 



DESTINY. 

That you are fair or wise is vain, 

Or strong, or rich, or generous ; 

You must add the untaught strain 

That sheds beauty on the rose. 

There's a melody born of melody, 

Which melts the world into a sea. 

Toil could never compass it ; 

Art its height could never hit ; 

It came never out of wit; 

But a music music-born 

Well may Jove and Juno scorn. 

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire 

Which drives me mad with sweet desire. 

What boots it? What the soldier's mail? 

Unless he conquer and prevail ? 

What all the goods thy pride which lift, 

If thou pine for another's gift? 

Alas ! that one is born in blight^ 

Victim of perpetual slight : 

When thou lookest on his face, 

Thy heart saith, ' Brother, go thy ways 5 

None shall ask thee what thou doest, 

Or care a rush for what thou knowest, 

Or listen when thou repliest, 

Or remember where thou liest. 



GUY. 33 

Or how thy supper is sodden;' 

And another is born 

To make the sun forgotten. 

Surely he carries a talisman 

Under his tongue ; 

Broad his shoulders are and strong; 

And his eye is scornful, 

Threatening and young. 

I hold it of little matter 

Whether your jewel be of pure water, 

A rose diamond or a white, 

But whether it dazzle me with light. 

I care not how you are dressed. 

In coarsest weeds or in the best ; 

Nor whether your name is base or brave : 

Nor for the fashion of your behavior ; 

But whether you charm me, 

Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me, 

And dress up Nature in your favor. 

One thing is forever good ; 

That one thing is Success, — 

Dear to the Eumenides, 

And to all the heavenly brood. 

Who bides at home, nor looks abroad, 

Carries the eagles, and masters the sword. 



GUY. 

Mortal mixed of middle clay, 
Attempered to the night and day, 
Interchangeable with things, 
Needs no amulets nor rings. 

VOL. IX. 3 



34 . GUY. 

Guy possessed the talisman 

That all things from him began; 

And as, of old, Polycrates 

Chained the sunshine and the breeze^ 

So did Guy betimes discover 

Fortune was his guard and lover ; 

In strange junctures, felt, with awe. 

His own symmetry with law ; 

That no mixture could withstand 

The virtue of his lucky hand. 

He gold or jewel could not lose, 

Nor not receive his ample dues. 

Fearless Guy had never foes. 

He did their weapons decompose. 

Aimed at him, the blushing blade 

Healed as fast the wounds it made. 

If on the foeman fell his gaze, 

Him it would straightway blind or crazso 

In the street, if he turned round, 

His eye the eye 'twas seeking found. 

It seemed his Genius discreet 

Worked on the Maker's own receipt, 

And made each tide and element 

Stewards of stipend and of rent ; 

So that the common waters fell 

As costly wine into his well. 

He had so sped his wise affairs 

That he caught Nature in his snares. 

Early or late, the falling rain 

Arrived in time to swell his grain ; 

Stream could not so perversely wind 

But corn of Guy's was there to grind i 

The siroc found it on its way. 

To speed his sails, to dry his hay^ 



HAMATREYA. 35 

And the world's sun seemed to rise 
To drudge all day for Guy the wise. 
In his rich nurseries, timely skill 
Strong crab with nobler blood did fill; 
The zephyr in his garden rolled 
From plum-trees vegetable gold; 
And all the hours of the year 
With their own harvest honored were. 
There was no frost but welcome came, 
Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame. 
Belonged to wind and world the toil 
And venture, and to Guy the oil. 



HAMATREYA. 

BuLKELEY, Hunt, WiUard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, 
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil 
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood. 
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, 
Saying, "Tis mine, my children's and my name's. 
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees ! 
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill ! 
I fancy these pure waters and the flags 
Know me, as does my dog : we sympathize ; 
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.' 

Where are these men ? Asleep beneath their grounds : 
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough. 
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys 
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs ; 
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet 
Clear of the grave. 



86 HAMATREYA. 

They added ridge to valley, brook to pond, 
And sighed for all that bounded their domain; 
* This suits me for a pasture ; that 's my park ; 
We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge. 
And misty lowland, where to go for peat. 
The land is well, — lies fairly to the south. 
'T is good, when you have crossed the sea and back^ 
To find the sitfast acres where you left them.' 
Ah ! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds 
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. 
Hear what the Earth says: — 

EARTH-SONG. 

* Mine and yours ; 

Mine, not yours^ 

Earth endures ; 

Stars abide — 

Shine down in the eld sea? 

Old are the shores ; 

But where are old men ? 

I who have seen much, 

Such have I never seen. 

*The lawyer's deed 
Ran sure. 
In tail, 

To them, and to their heirs 
Who shall succeed, 
Without fail, 
Forevermore. 

*Here is the land. 
Shaggy with wood, 



GOOD-BYE. 37 

With its old valley, 
Mound and flood. 
But the heritors ? — 
Fled like the flood's foam. 
The lawyer, and the laws, 
And the kingdom, 
Clean swept herefrom. 

*They called me theirs. 

Who so controlled me ; 

Yet every one 

Wished to stay, and is gone. 

How am I theirs, 

If they cannot hold me. 

But I hold them?' 

When I heard the Earth-song, 

I was no longer hrave ; 

My avarice cooled 

Like lust in the chill of the grare. 



GOOD-BYE. 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home : 
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine. 
Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
A river-ark on the ocean brine, 
Long I 've been tossed like the driven foam ; 
But now, proud world! I 'm going home. 



88 GOOD-BYE. 

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face 5 

To Grandeur with his wise grimace; 

To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; 

To supple Office, low and high ; 

To crowded halls, to court and street ; 

To frozen hearts and hasting feet ; 

To those who go, and those who come ; 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home^ 

I am going to my own hearth-stone, 
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, — 
A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned ; 
Where arches green, the livelong day, 
Echo the blackbird's roundelay. 
And vulgar feet have never trod 
A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
Where the evening star so holy shines, 
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man. 
At the sophist schools and the learned clan ; 
For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet ? 



THE RHODORA. — THE HUMBLE-BEE. 39 
THE RHODORA: 

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods. 
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
The purple petals, fallen in the pool. 
Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, 
And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : 
"Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! 
I never thought to ask, I never knew : 
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
The self-same Power that brought me there brought 
you. 

THE HUMBLE-BEE. 

Burly, dozing humble-bee. 
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Porto Rique, 
Far-off heats through seas to seek; 
I will follow thee alone. 
Thou animated torrid-zone ! 
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 
Let me chase thy waving lines ; 



40 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 

Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
Singing over shrubs and vineSo 

Insect lover of the sun, 
Joy of thy dominion ! 
Sailor of the atmosphere ; 
Swimmer through the waves of air| 
Voyager of light and noon ; 
Epicurean of June ; 
Wait, I prithee, till I come 
Within earshot of thy hum, — 
All without is martyrdom. 

When the south wind, in May days. 

With a net of shining haze 

Silvers the horizon wall. 

And with softness touching all, 

Tints the human countenance 

With a color of romance, 

Ajid infusing subtle heats, 

Turns the sod to violets, 

Thou, in sunny solitudes, 

Rover of the underwoods, 

The green silence dost displace 

With thy mellow, breezy bass. 

Hot midsummer's petted crone, 
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone 
Tells of countless sunny hours, 
Long days, and solid banks of flowers | 
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
In Indian wildernesses found ; 
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure, 
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure. 



BERRYING. 43 

Aught unsavory or unclean 
Hath my insect never seen ; 
But violets and bilberry bells, 
Maple-sap and daffodels, 
Grass with green flag half-mast high. 
Succory to match the sky, 
Columbine with horn of honey, 
Scented fern, and agrimony. 
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue 
And brier-roses, dwelt among ; 
All beside was unknown waste, 
All was picture as he passed. 

Wiser far than human seer, 
Yellow-breeched philosopher ! 
Seeing only what is fair. 
Sipping only what is sweet, 
Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
Leave the chaff, and take the wheafc 
When the fierce northwestern blast 
Cools sea and land so far and fast, 
Thou already slumberest deep ; 
Woe and want thou canst outsleepj 
Want and woe, which torture us, 
Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 



BERRYING. 

'Mat be true what I had heard,—' 
Earth's a howling wilderness. 
Truculent with fraud and force,' 
Said I, strolling through the pastures. 



42 THE SNOW-STORM, 

And along the river-side. 

Caught among the blackberry vines, 

Feeding on the Ethiops sweet, 

Pleasant fancies overtook me. 

I said, ' What influence me preferred, 

Elect, to dreams thus beautiful ? ' 

The vines replied, 'And didst thou deem 

No wisdom from our berries went ? ' 



THE SNOW-STORM. 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

Come see the north wind's masonry. 
Out of an unseen quarry evermore 
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
Curves his white bastions with projected roof 
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. 
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he 
For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; 
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn ; 
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall. 



WOODNOTES. 43 

Maugre the farmer's sighs ; and at the gate 
A tapering turret overtops the work. 
And when his hours are numbered, and the world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not. 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic ^n slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work. 
The frolic architecture of the snow. 



WOODNOTES. 
I. 



When the pine tosses its cones 
To the song of its waterfall tones, 
Who speeds to the woodland walks? 
To birds and trees who talks? 
Caesar of his leafy Rome, 
There the poet is at home. 
He goes to the river-side, — 
Not hook nor line hath he ; 
He stands in the meadows wide,-«> 
Nor gun nor scythe to see. 
Sure some god his eye enchants ; 
What he knows nobody wants. 
In the wood he travels glad, 
Without better fortune had, 
Melancholy without bad. 
Knowledge this man prizes best 
Seems fantastic to the rest: 
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, 



44 WOODNOTES. 

Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, 
Boughs on which the wild bees settlsj 
Tints that spot the violet's petal, 
Why Nature loves the number five, 
And why the star-form she repeats i 
Lover of all things alive, 
Wonderer at all he meets, 
Wonderer chiefly at himself. 
Who can tell him what he is? 
Or how meet in human elf 
Coming and past eternities? 



And such I knew, a forest seer, 
A minstrel of the natural year. 
Foreteller of the vernal ides, 
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, 
A lover true, who knew by heart 
Each joy the mountain dales impart ; 
It seemed that Nature could not raise 
A plant in any secret place, 
In quaking bog, on snowy hill, 
Beneath the grass that shades the rill, 
Under the snow, between the rocks. 
In damp fields known to bird and fox. 
But he would come in the very hour 
It opened in its virgin bower. 
As if a sunbeam showed the place. 
And tell its long-descended race. 
It seemed as if the breezes brought him 
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him 
As if by secret sight he knew 
Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. 
Many haps fall in the field 



WOODNOTES. 45 

Seldom seen by wishful eyes; 

But all her shows did Nature yield, 

To please and win this pilgrim wise. 

He saw the partridge drum in the woods; 

He heard the woodcock's evening hymn ; 

He found the tawny thrushes' broods; 

And the shy hawk did wait for him ; 

What others did at distance hear, 

And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 

Was shown to this philosopher, 

And at his bidding seemed to come. 



In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang 
Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang ; 
He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon 
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone ; 
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, 
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. 
He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds. 
The slight Linnsea hang its twin-born heads, 
And blessed the monument of the man of flowers. 
Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern 

bowers. 
He heard, when in the grove, at intervals. 
With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls, — 
One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, 
Declares the close of its green century. 
Low lies the plant to whose creation went 
Sweet influence from every element ; 
Whose living towers the years conspired to build, 
Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild. 
Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed, 
He roamed, content alike with man and beast. 



46 WOODNOTES. 

Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; 
There the red morning touched him with its light. 
Three moons his great heart him a hermit made, 
So long he roved at will the boundless shade. 
The timid it concerns to ask their way, 
And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray. 
To make no step until the event is known, 
A.nd ills to come as evils past bemoan. 
Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps 
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; 
Go where he will, the wise man is at home. 
His hearth the earth, — his hall the azure dome; 
Where his clear spirit leads him, there 's his road, 
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed. 



''Twas one of the charmed days 

When the genius of God doth flow. 

The wind may alter twenty ways, 

A tempest cannot blow; 

It may blow north, it still is warm; 

Or south, it still is clear ; 

Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; 

Or west, no thunder fear. 

The musing peasant lowly great 

Beside the forest water sate; 

The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown 

Composed the network of his throne ; 

The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, 

Was burnished to a floor of glass. 

Painted with shadows green and proud 

Of the tree and of the cloud. 

He was the heart of all the scene ; 

On him the sun looked more serene; 



WOODNOTES. 47 

To hill and cloud his face was known, — 

It seemed the likeness of their own; 

They knew by secret sympathy 

The public child of earth and sky. 

* You ask,' he said, ' what guide 

Me through trackless thickets led, 

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and 

wide. 
I found the water's bed. 
The watercourses were my guide ; 
I travelled grateful by their side, 
Or through their channel dry ; 
They led me through the thicket damp, 
Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, 
Through beds of granite cut my road. 
And their resistless friendship showed : 
The falling waters led me. 
The foodful waters fed me, 
And brought me to the lowest land, 
Unerring to the ocean sand. 
The moss upon the forest bark 
Was pole-star when the night was dark ; 
The purple berries in the wood 
Supplied me necessary food ; 
For Nature ever faithful is 
To such as trust her faithfulness. 
When the forest shall mislead me. 
When the night and morning lie. 
When sea and land refuse to feed me, 
'T will be time enough to die ; 
Then will yet my mother yield 
A pillow in her greenest field. 
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover 
The clay of their departed lover.* 



48 WOODNOTES. 

WOODNOTES. 

11. 

As sunbeams stream througli liberal space 
' And nothing jostle or displace, 

So waved the pine-tree through my thought 
And fanned the dreams it never brought. 

* Whether is better, the gift or the donor? 

Come to me,' 

Quoth the pine-tree, 

*I am the giver of honor. 

My garden is the cloven rock, 

And my manure the snow; 

And drifting sand-heaps feed my stoekj 

In summer's scorching glow. 

He is great who can live by me. 

The rough and bearded forester 

Is better than the lord ; 

God fills the scrip and canister, 

Sin piles the loaded board. 

The lord is the peasant that was. 

The peasant the lord that shall be | 

The lord is hay, the peasant grass, 

One dry, and one the living tree. 

Who liveth by the ragged pine 

Foundeth a heroic line ; 

Who liveth in the palace hall 

Waneth fast and spendeth all. 

He goes to my savage haunts. 

With his chariot and his care ; 



WOODNOTES. 49 

My twilight realm he disenchants, 
And finds his prison there. 

* What prizes the town and the tower ? 

Only what the pine-tree yields ; 

Sinew that subdued the fields ; 

The wild-eyed boy, who in the Avoods 

Chants his hymn to hills and floods, 

Whom the city's poisoning spleen 

Made not pale, or fat, or lean ; 

Whom the rain and the wind purgeth. 

Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth, 

In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth. 

In whose feet the lion rusheth, 

Iron arms, and iron mould. 

That know not fear, fatigue, or cold. 

I give my rafters to his boat. 

My billets to his boiler's throat. 

And I will swim the ancient sea 

To float my child to victory, 

And grant to dwellers with the pine 

Dominion o'er the palm and vine. 

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, 

Unnerves his strength, invites his end. 

Cut a bough from my parent stem, 

And dip it in thy porcelain vase ; 

A little while each russet gem 

Will swell and rise with wonted grace; 

But when it seeks enlarged supplies, 

The orphan of the forest dies. 

Whoso walks in solitude 

And inhabiteth the wood, 

VOL. IX. 4 



50 WOODNOTES. 

Choosing light, wave, rock and bird, 
Before the money-loving herd, 
Into that forester shall pass, 
From these companions, power and grace. 
Clean shall he be, without, within, 
From the old adhering sin. 
All ill dissolving in the light 
Of his triumphant j)iercing sight : 
Not vain, sour, nor frivolous ; 
Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous ; 
Grave, chaste, contented, though retired, 
And of all other men desired. 
On him the light of star and moon 
Shall fall with purer radiance down ; 
All constellations of the sky- 
Shed their virtue through his eye. 
Him Nature giveth for defence 
His formidable innocence; 
The mounting sap, the shells, the sea, 
All spheres, all stones, his helpers be 5 
He shall meet the speeding year, 
Without wailing, without fear ; 
He shall be happy in his love, 
Like to like shall joyful prove ; 
He shall be happy whilst he wooes, 
Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse. 
But if with gold she bind her hair, 
And deck her breast with diamond, 
Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear. 
Though thou lie alone on the ground. 

^ Heed the old oracles. 
Ponder my spells; 



WOODNOTES, 61 

Song wakes in my pinnacles * 

When the wind swells. 

Soundeth the prophetic wind, \ 

The shadows shake on the rock behind, \ 

And the countless leaves of the pine are strings ^ 

Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. 

Hearken ! Hearken ! 
If thou wouldst know the mystic song 
Chanted when the sphere was young. 
Aloft, abroad, the paean swells ; 
O wise man ! hear'st thou half it tells ? 
O wise man ! hear'st thou the least part ? 
'Tis the chronicle of art. 
To the open ear it sings 
Sweet the genesis of things, 
Of tendency through endless ages, 
Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, 
Of rounded worlds, of space and time, 
Of the old flood's subsiding slime, 
Of chemic matter, force and form, 
Of poles and powers, cold, wet and warms 
The rushing metamorphosis 
Dissolving all that fixture is, 
Melts things that be to things that seem, 
And solid nature to a dream. 
O, listen to the undersong, 
The ever old, the ever young ; 
And, far within those cadent pauses, 
The chorus of the ancient Causes ! 
Delights the dreadful Destiny 
To fling his voice into the tree. 
And shock thy weak ear with a note 
Breathed from the everlasting throat. 



52 WOODNOTES. 

In music he repeats the pang 

Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang^ 

O mortal ! thy ears are stones ; 

These echoes are laden with tones 

Which only the pure can hear; 

Thou canst not catch what they recite 

Of Fate and WiU, of Want and Right, 

Of man to come, of human life, 

Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife/ 

Once again the pine-tree sung : — 
* Speak not thy speech my boughs among: 
Put off thy years, wash in the breeze ; 
My hours are peaceful centuries. 
Talk no more with feeble tongue ; 
No more the fool of space and time. 
Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme. 
Only thy Americans 

Can read thy line, can meet thy glance, 
But the runes that I rehearse 
Understands the universe ; 
The least breath my boughs which tossed 
Brings again the Pentecost; 
To every soul resounding clear 
In a voice of solemn cheer, — 
" Am I not thine ? Are not these thine ? " 
And they reply, " Forever mine ! " 
My branches speak Italian, 
English, German, Basque, Castilian, 
Mountain speech to Highlanders, 
Ocean tongues to islanders. 
To Fin and Lap and swart Malay, 
To each his bosom-secret say. 



WOODNOTES. 63 

Come learn with me the fatal song 
Which knits the world in music strong, 
Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, 
Of things with things, of times with times, 
Primal chimes of sun and shade. 
Of sound and echo, man and maid, 
The land reflected in the flood, 
Body with shadow still pursued. 
For Nature beats in perfect tune, 
And rounds with rhyme her every rune, 
Whether she work in land or sea, 
Or hide underground her alchemy. 
Thou canst not wave thy staff in air. 
Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
But it carves the bow of beauty there, 
And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. 
The wood is wiser far than thou ; 
The wood and wave each other know 
Not unrelated, unaffied. 
But to each thought and thing allied. 
Is perfect Nature's every part, 
Rooted in the mighty Heart. 
But thou, poor child ! unbound, unrhymed, 
Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed, 
Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded ? 
Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded ? 
Who thee divorced, deceived and left? 
Thee of thy faith who hath bereft, 
And torn the ensigns from thy brow, 
And sunk the immortal eye so low ? 
Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender, 
Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender 
For royal man ; — they thee confess 
An exile from the wilderness, — 



54 WOODNOTES. 

The hills where health with health agrees, 

And the wise soul expels disease. 
Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign 
By which thy hurt thou may'st divine. 
When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, 
Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, 
To thee the horizon shall express 
But emptiness on emptiness ; 
There lives no man of Nature's worth 
In the circle of the earth ; 
And to thine eye the vast skies fall, 
Dire and satirical, 
On clucking hens and prating fools, 
On thieves, on drudges and on dolls. 
And thou shalt say to the Most High, 
" Godhead ! all this astronomy. 
And fate and practice and invention, 
Strong art and beautiful pretension, 
This radiant pomp of sun and star. 
Throes that were, and worlds that are, 
Behold! were in vain and in vain; — 
It cannot be, — I will look again. 
Surely now will the curtain rise, 
And earth's fit tenant me surprise ; — 
But the curtain doth not rise. 
And Nature has miscarried wholly 
Into failure, into folly.'* 

* Alas ! thine is the bankruptcy, 

Blessed Nature so to see. 

Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, 

And heal the hurts which sin has madea 

I see thee in the crowd alone ; 

I will be thy companion. 



WOODNOTES. 55 

Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, 

And build to them a final tomb ; 

Let the starred shade that nightly falls 

Stiil celebrate their funerals, 

And the bell of beetle and of bee 

Knell their melodious memory. 

Behind thee leave thy merchandise, 

Thy churches and thy charities ; 

And leave thy peacock wit behind ; 

Enough for thee the primal mind 

That flows in streams, that breathes in winds 

Leave all thy pedant lore apart ; 

God hid the whole world in thy heart. 

Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, 

Gives all to them who all renounce. 

The rain comes when the wind calls ; 

The river knows the way to the sea; 

Without a pilot it runs and falls, 

Blessing all lands with its charity ; 

The sea tosses and foams to find 

Its way up to the cloud and wind ; 

The shadow sits close to the flying ball ; 

The date fails not on the palm-tree tall; 

And thou, — go burn thy wormy pages, — 

Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages. 

Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain 

To find what bird had piped the strain ? — 

Seek not, and the little eremite 

Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 

* Hearken once more ! 
I will tell thee the mundane lore. 
Older am I than thy numbers wot. 
Change I may, but I pass not. 



56 WOODNOTES. 

Hitl\erto all things fast abide, 

And anchored in the tempest ride^ 

Trenchant time behoves to hurry 

All to yean and all to bury : 

All the forms are fugitive, 

But the substances survive. 

Ever fresh the broad creation, 

A divine improvisation. 

From the heart of God proceeds, 

A single vvdll, a million deeds. 

Once slept the world an egg of stone, 

And pulse, and sound, and light was none; 

And God said, " Throb ! " and there was motion 

And the vast mass became vast ocean. 

Onward and on, the eternal Pan, 

Who layeth the world's incessant plan, 

Halteth never in one shape. 

But forever doth escape, 

Like wave or flame, into new forms 

Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. 

I, that to-day am a pine. 

Yesterday was a bundle of grass. 

He is free and libertine, 

Pouring of his power the wine 

To every age, to every race ; 

Unto every race and age 

He emptieth the beverage ; 

Unto each, and unto all, 

Maker and original. 

The world is the ring of his spells. 

And the play of his miracles. 

As he giveth to all to drink. 

Thus or thus they are and think. 



WOODNOTES. 6T 

With one drop sheds form and feature ; 

With the next a special nature ; 

The third adds heat's indulgent spark ; 

The fourth gives light which eats the dark; 

Into the fifth himself he flings, 

And conscious Law is King of kings. 

As the bee through the garden ranges, 

From world to world the godhead changes ; 

As the sheep go feeding in the waste. 

From form to form He maketh haste ; 

This vault which glows immense with light 

Is the inn where he lodges for a night. 

What recks such Traveller if the bowers 

Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers 

A bunch of fragrant lilies be. 

Or the stars of eternity.'^ 

Alike to him the better, the worse,— 

The glowing angel, the outcast corse. 

Thou metest him by centuries. 

And lo ! he passes like the breeze ; 

Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, 

He hides in pure transparency ; 

Thou askest in fountains and in fires, 

He is the essence that inquires. 

He is the axis of the star ; 

He is the sparkle of the spar ; 

He is the heart of every creature ; 

He is the meaning of each feature ; 

And his mind is the sky. 

Than aU it holds more deep, more high/ 



58 MONADNOC. 



MONADNOC. 

Thotisaistd minstrels woke within me, 

* Our music 's in the hills ; ' — 
Gayest pictures rose to win me, 

Leopard-colored rills. 
* Up ! — If thou knew'st who calls 
To twilight parks of beech and pine, 
High over the river intervals, 
Above the ploughman's highest line, 
Over the owner's farthest walls ! 
Up ! where the airy citadel 
O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell ! 
Let not unto the stones the Day 
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display. 
Read the celestial sign ! 
Lo I the south answers to the north ; 
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane ; 
A greater spirit bids thee forth 
Than the gray dreams which thee detain. 
Mark how the climbing Oreads 
Beckon thee to their arcades ; 
Youth, for a moment free as they, 
Teach thy feet to feel the ground, 
Ere yet arrives the wintry day 
When Time thy feet has bound. 
Take the bounty of thy birth. 
Taste the lordship of the earth.' 

I heard, and I obeyed, — 
Assured that he who made the claim, 
Well known, but loving not a name. 

Was not to be gainsaid. 



MONADNOC. 59 

Ere yet the summoning voice was still, 
I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill. 
Frcm the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed 
Like ample banner flung abroad 
To all the dwellers in the plains 
Round about, a hundred miles, 
With salutation to the sea and to the border- 
ing isles. 
In his own loom's garment dressed, 
By his proper bounty blessed. 
Fast abides this constant giver. 
Pouring many a cheerful river ; 
To far eyes, an aerial isle 
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile. 
Which morn and crimson evening paint 
For bard, for lover and for saint; 
An eyemark and the country's core, 
Inspirer, prophet evermore ; 
Pillar which God aloft had set 
So that men might it not forget; 
It should be their life's ornament, 
And mix itself with each event ; 
Gauge and calendar and dial. 
Weatherglass and chemic phial. 
Garden of berries, perch of birds, 
Pasture of pool-haunting herds, 
Graced by each change of sum untold, 
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold. 

The Titan heeds his sky-affairs, 
Rich rents and wide alliance shares ; 
Mysteries of color daily laid 
By morn and eve in light and shade; 



60 MONADNOG. 

And sweet varieties of chance, 
And the mystic seasons' dance; 
And thief-like step of liberal hours 
Thawing snow-drift into flowers. 
O, wondrous craft of plant and stone 
By eldest science wrought and shown ! 

* Happy,' I said, * whose home is here ! 
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer! 
Boon Nature to his poorest shed 
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.' 
Intent, I searched the region round, 
And in low hut the dweller found : 
Woe is me for my hope's downfall ! 
Is yonder squalid peasant all 
That this proud nursery could breed 
For God's vicegerency and stead? 
Time out of mind, this forge of ores; 
Quarry of spars in mountain pores ; 
Old cradle, hunting-ground and bier 
Of wolf and otter, bear and deer ; 
Well-built abode of many a race ; 
Tower of observance searching space ; 
Factory of river and of rain ; 
Link in the alps' globe-girding chain ; 
By million changes skilled to tell 
What in the Eternal standeth well, 
And what obedient Nature can ; — 
Is this colossal talisman 
Kindly to plant and blood and kind, 
But speechless to the master's mind? 
I thought to find the patriots 
In whom the stock of freedom roots; 



MONADNOC. 61 

To myself I oft recount 
Tales of many a famous mount, — 
"Wales, Scotland, UrI, Hungary's dells ; 
Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs and Tells ; 
And think how Nature in these towers 
Uplifted shall condense her powers, 
And lifting man to the blue deep 
Where stars their perfect courses keep, 
Like wise preceptor, lure his eye 
To sound the science of the sky. 
And carry learning to its height 
Of untried power and sane delight: 
The Indian cheer, the frosty skies, 
Rear purer wits, inventive eyes, — 
Eyes that frame cities where none be. 
And hands that stablish what these see; 
And by the moral of his place 
Hint summits of heroic grace; 
Man in these crags a fastness find 
To iight pollution of the mind ; 
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong, 
Adhere like this foundation strong, 
The insanity of towns to stem 
With simpleness for stratagem. 
But if the brave old mould is broke, 
And end in churls the mountain folk 
In tavern cheer and tavern joke, 
Sink, O mountain, in the swamp ! 
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp ! 
Perish like leaves, the highland breed 
No sire survive, no son succeed! 

Soft ! let not the offended muse 
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse. 



62 MONADNOC. 

Many hamlets sought I then, 

Many farms of mountain men. 

Kallyhig round a parish steeple 

Nestle warm the highland people, 

Coarse and boisterous, yet mild, 

Strong as giant, slow as child. 

Sweat and season are their arts, 

Their talismans are ploughs and carts % 

And well the youngest can command 

Honey from the frozen land ; 

With cloverheads the swamp adorn, 

Change the running sand to corn ; 

For wolf and fox, bring lowing herds. 

And for cold mosses, cream and curds : 

Weave wood to canisters and mats ; 

Drain sweet maple juice in vats. 

No bird is safe that cuts the air 

From their rifle or their snare ; 

No fish, in river or in lake. 

But their long hands it thence will take*, 

Whilst the country's flinty face, 

Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, 

To fill the hoUows, sink the hills, 

Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills, 

And fit the bleak and howling waste 

For homes of virtue, sense and taste. 

The World-soul knows his own affair, 

Forelooking, when he would prepare 

For the next ages, men of mould 

Well embodied, well ensouled, 

He cools the present's fiery glow. 

Sets the life-pulse strong but slow : 

Bitter winds and fasts austere 

His quarantines and grottoes, where 



MONADNOG, 63 

He slowly cures decrepit flesh, 

And brings it infantile and fresh. 

Toil and temiDest are the toys 

And games to breathe his stalwart boys: 

They bide their time, and well can prove, 

If need were, their line from Jove ; 

Of the same stuff, and so allayed, 

As that whereof the sun is made. 

And of the fibre, quick and strong. 

Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song. 

Now in sordid weeds they sleep, 
In dulness now their secret keep ; 
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech, 
These the masters who can teach. 
Fourscore or a hundred words 
All their vocal muse affords ; 
But they turn them in a fashion 
Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. 
I can spare the college bell. 
And the learned lecture, well; 
Spare the clergy and libraries. 
Institutes and dictionaries. 
For that hardy English root 
Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot. 
Rude poets of the tavern hearth, 
Squandering your unquoted mirth, 
Which keeps the ground and never soars, 
While Jake retorts and Reuben roars; 
Scoff of yeoman strong and stark, 
Goes like bullet to its mark ; 
While the solid curse and jeer 
Never balk the v/aiting ear. 



64 MONADNOC, 

On the summit as I stood. 
O'er the floor of plain and flood 
Seemed to me, the towering hill 
"Was not altogether still, 
But a quiet sense conveyed : 
If I err not, thus it said : -~ 

* Many feet in summer seek. 

Oft, my far-appearing peak; 

In the dreaded winter time. 

None save dappling shadows climb, 

Under clouds, my lonely head. 

Old as the sun, old almost as the shade % 

And comest thou 

To see strange forests and new snow, 

And tread uplifted land ? 

And leavest thou thy lowland race, 

Here amid clouds to stand ? 

And wouldst be my companion 

Where I gaze, and still shall gaze. 

Through tempering nights and flashing days, 

When forests fall, and man is gone, 

Over tribes and over times, 

At the burning Lyre, 

Nearing me. 

With its stars of northern fire, 

In many a thousand years? 

^Gentle pilgrim, if thou know 
The gamut old of Pan, 
And how the hills began, 
The frank blessings of the hill 
Fall on thee, as fall they will. 



MONADNOC. 65 

* Let him heed who can and will ; 
Enchantment fixed me here 
To stand the hurts of time, until 
In mightier chant I disappear. 

If thou trowest 
How the cliemic eddies play, 
Pole to pole, and what they say; 
And that these gray crags 
Not on crags are hung, 
But beads are of a rosary 
On prayer and music strung; 
And, credulous, through the granite seeming, 
Seest the smile of Reason beaming ; — 
Can thy style-discerning eye 
The hidden-working Builder spy. 
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din, 
"With hammer soft as snowflake's flight; — 
Knowest thou this? 
O pilgrim, wandering not amiss ! 
Already my rocks lie light. 
And soon my cone will spin. 

*For the world was built in order. 
And the atoms march in tune ; 
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder. 
The sun obeys them and the moon. 
Orb and atom forth they prance, 
When they hear from far the rune; 
None so backward in the troop, 
When the music and the dance 
Reach his place and circumstance, 
But knows the sun-creating sound. 
And, though a pyramid, will bounds 



MONADNOC. 

^ Monadnoc is a mountain strong. 

Tall and good my kind among ; 

But well I know, no mountain can, 

Zion or Meru, measure with man. 

For it is on zodiacs writ, 

Adamant is soft to wit : 

And when the greater comes again 

"With my secret in his brain, 

I shall pass, as glides my shadow 

Daily over hill and meadow. 

* Through all time, in light, in gloom 

"Well I hear the approaching feet 

On the flinty pathway beat 

Of him that cometh, and shall come ; 

Of him who shall as lightly bear 

My daily load of woods and streams, 

As doth this round sky-cleaving boat 

Which never strains its rocky beams ; 

Whose timbers, as they silent float, 

Alps and Caucasus uprear. 

And the long Alleghanies here, 

And all town-sprinkled lands that be. 

Sailing through stars with all their history, 

^ Every morn I lift my head. 

See New England underspread. 

South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound, 

From Katskill east to the sea-bound. 

Anchored fast for many an age, 

I await the bard and sage, 

Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed, 

Shall string Monadnoc like a bead. 



MONADNOC. 67 

Comes that cheerful troubadour, 
This mound shall throb his face beforOj 
As when, with inward fires and pain, 
It rose a bubble from the plain. 
When he cometh, I shall shed. 
From this wellspring in my head, 
Fountain-drop of sj)icier worth 
Than all vintage of the earth. 
There 's fruit upon my barren soil 
Costlier far than wine or oil. 
There 's a berry blue and gold, — 
Autumn-ripe, its juices hold 
Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart, 
Asia's rancor, Athens' art, 
Slowsure Britain's secular might, 
And the German's inward sight. 
I will give my son to eat 
Best of Pan's immortal meat, 
Bread to eat, and juice to drain; 
So the coinage of his brain 
Shall not be forms of stars, but stars, 
Nor pictures pale, but Jove and MarSc 
He comes, but not of that race bred 
"Who daily climb my specular head. 
Oft as morning wreathes my scarf, 
Fled the last plumule of the Dark, 
Pants up hither the spruce clerk 
From South Cove and City Wharf. 
I take him up my rugged sides. 
Half-repentant, scant of breath, — 
Bead-eyes my granite chaos show, 
And my midsummer snow: 
Open the daunting map beneath,-— 



68 MONADNOG. 

All his county, sea and land, 

Dwarfed to measure of his hand 5 

His day's ride is a furlong space, 

His city-tops a glimmering haze. 

I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding! 

"See there the grim gray rounding 

Of the bullet of the earth 

"Whereon ye sail, 

Tumbling steep 

In the uncontinented deep." 

He looks on that, and he turns pale. 

'Tis even so, this treacherous kite 

Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere, 

Thoughtless of its anxious freight, 

Plunges eyeless on forever; 

And he, poor parasite. 

Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,— 

Who is the captain he knows not. 

Port or pilot trows not, — 

Risk or ruin he must share. 

I scowl on him with my cloud, 

With my north wind chill his blood ; 

I lame him, clattering down the rocks 5 

And to live he is in fear. 

Then, at last, I let him down 

Once more into his dapper town. 

To chatter, frightened, to his clan 

And forget me if he can.' 

As in the old poetic fame 
The gods are blind and lame, 
And the simular despite 
Betrays the more abounding might, 



MONADNOC. 69 

So call not waste that barren cone 

Above the floral zone, 

Where forests starve : 

It is pure use ; — 

What sheaves like those which here we glean 

and bind 
Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse? 

Ages are thy days, 

Thou grand affirmer of the present tense, 

And type of permanence ! 

Firm ensign of the fatal Being, 

Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, 

That will not bide the seeing ! 

Hither we bring 

Our insect miseries to thy rocks ; 

And the whole flight, with folded wing, 

Vanish, and end their murmuring, — 

Vanish beside these dedicated blocks, 

Which who can tell what mason laid? 

Spoils of a front none need restore, 

Replacing frieze and architrave ; — 

Where flowers each stone rosette and metope 

brave ; 
Still is the haughty pile erect 
Of the old building Intellect. 

Complement of human kind, 
Holding us at vantage still, 
Our sumptuous indigence, 
O barren mound, thy plenties fill! 
We fool and prate; 



70 MONADNOC. 

Thou art silent and sedate. 

To myriad kinds and times one sense 

The constant mountain doth dispense ; 

Shedding on all its snows and leaves, 

One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. 

Thou seest, O watchman tall, 

Our towns and races grow and fall, 

And imagest the stable good 

For which we all our lifetime grope, 

In shifting form the formless mind, 

And though the substance us elude, 

We in thee the shadow find. 

Thou, in our astronomy 

An opaker star, 

Seen haply from afar. 

Above the horizon's hoop, 

A moment, by the railway troop. 

As o'er some bolder height they speed, • 

By circumspect ambition. 

By errant gain, 

By feasters and the frivolous, — 

Recallest us. 

And makest sane. 

Mute orator! well skilled to plead. 

And send conviction without phrase. 

Thou dost succor and remede 

The shortness of our days. 

And promise, on thy Founder's truth, 

Long morrow to this mortal youth. 



FABLE. — ODE. 71 



FABLE. 



The mountain and the squirrel 

Had a quarrel. 

And the former called the latter ' Little Prig ; ' 

Bun replied, 

* You are doubtless very big ; 

But all sorts of things and weather 

Must be taken in together, 

To make up a year 

And a sphere. 

And I think it no disgrace 

To occupy my place. 

If I 'm not so large as you, 

You are not so small as I, 

And not half so spry. 

I '11 not deny you make 

A very pretty squirrel track ; 

Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put 5 

If I cannot carry forests on my back, 

Neither can you crack a nut.' 



ODE. 

INSCRIBED TO W. H. CHAINING. 



Though loath to grieve 
The evil time's sole patriot, 
I cannot leave 
My honied thought 
For the priest's cant, 
Or statesman's rant. 



72 ODE. 

If I refuse 

My study for their politiquej 

Which at the best is trick, 

The angry Muse 

Puts confusion in my brain. 

But who is he that prates 
Of the culture of mankind, 
Of better arts and life ? 
Go, blindworm, go. 
Behold the famous States 
Harrying Mexico 
With rifle and with knife ! 

Or who, with accent bolder. 

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer! 

I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook ! 

And in thy valleys, Agiochook ! 

The jackals of the negro-holder. 

The God who made New Hampshire 

Taunted the lofty land 

With little men ; — 

Small bat and wren 

House in the oak : — 

If earth-fire cleave 

The upheaved land, and bury the folk, 

The southern crocodile would grieve. 

Virtue palters ; Right is hence ; 

Freedom praised, but hid ; 

Funeral eloquence 

Battles the coffin-lid. 



ODE. 73 



What boots thy zeal, 
O glowing friend, 
That would indignant rend 
The northland from the south ? 
Wherefore ? to what good end ? 
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill 
Would serve things still ; — 
Things are of the snake. 

The horseman serves the horse, 
The neatherd serves the neat. 
The merchant serves the purse, 
The eater serves his meat ; 
'T is the day of the chattel, 
Web to weave, and corn to grind | 
Things are in the saddle, 
And ride mankind. 

There are two laws discrete, 

Not reconciled, — 

Law for man, and law for thing | 

The last builds town and fleet, 

But it runs wild. 

And doth the man unking, 

'T is fit the forest fall, 

The steep be graded. 

The mountain tunnelled. 

The sand shaded, 

The orchard planted. 

The glebe tilled. 

The prairie granted, 

The steamer built 



74 ODE. 

Let man serve law for man ; 
Live for friend^ig^ip^ Yiyq for love, 
For truth's and? harmony's behoof; 
The state may -follow how it can, 
As Olympus foLjows Jove. 

Yet do not 1^' implore 
The wrinkled S|hopman to my sounding woods, 
Nor bid the unj^iui^g senator 
Ask votes of thi .^shes in the solitudes. 
Every one to hijg chosen work ; — 
Foolish hands n ;^ay mix and mar ; 
Wise and sure ,,fhe issues are. 
Round they rol, i till dark is light, 
Sex to sex, an -^ even to odd ; — 
The over-god ^ 
Who marries F>ight to Might, 
Who peoples, u.npeoples, — 
He who exterm^inates 
Races by stron^^^er races. 
Black by white . faces, — 
Knows to bring phoney 
Out of the lion ; 
Grafts gentlest s^cion 
On pirate and T\xrk. 

I 
The Cossack eatij^ Poland, 
Like stolen fruit ^. 
Her last noble is. ruined 
Her last poet mu^^e : 
Straight, into dou^^i^ig band 
The victors dividt^ . 
Half for freedom strike and stand; — 
The astonished ]V>Tuse finds thousands at her side; 



ASTR^A, 7r> 



ASTR^A. 

Each the herald is who wrote 

His rank, and quartered his own coat. 

There is no king nor sovereign state 

That can fix a hero's rate; 

Each to all is venerable, 

Cap-a-pie invulnerable. 

Until he write, where all eyes rest, 

Slave or master on his breast. 

I saw men go up and down, 

In the country and the town, 

"With this tablet on their neck, — 

* Judgment and a judge we seek.' 
Not to monarchs they repair, 
Nor to learned jurist's chair; 
But they hurry to their peers. 

To their kinsfolk and their dears; 
Louder than with speech tliey pray, — 

* "What am I ? comjjanion, say.' 
And the friend not hesitates 

To assign just place and mates ; 
Answers not4n word or letter, 
Yet is understood the better ; 
Each to each a looking-glass. 
Reflects his figure that doth pass. 
Every wayfarer he meets 
What himself declared repeats, 
What himself confessed records. 
Sentences him in his words ; 
The form is his own corporal formj 
And his thought the penal worm. 



76 ETIENNE DE LA BO^CE, 

Yet shine forever virgin minds, 

Loved by stars and purest winds, 

Which, o'er passion throned sedate, 

Have not hazarded their state ; 

Disconcert the searching spy, 

Rendering to a curious eye 

The durance of a granite ledge. 

To those who gaze from the sea's edge 

It is there for benefit; 

It is there for purging light; 

There for purifying storms ; 

And its depths reflect all forms ; 

It cannot parley with the mean, — 

Pure by impure is not seen. 

For there's no sequestered grot. 

Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot. 

But Justice, journeying in the sphere, 

Daily stoops to harbor there. 



ETIENNE DE LA BOECE. 

I SERVE you not, if you I follow, 
Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow; 
And bend my fancy to your leading, 
All too nimble for my treading. 
When the pilgrimage is done. 
And we've the landscape overrun, 
I am bitter, vacant, thwarted. 
And your heart is unsupported. 
Vainly valiant, you have missed 
The manhood that should yours resist,- 



COMPENSATION. 11 

Its complement ; but if I could, 
In severe or cordial mood, 
Lead you rightly to my altar. 
Where the wisest Muses falter. 
And worship that world- warming spark 
Which dazzles me in midnight dark, 
Equalizing small and large, 
While the soul it doth surcharge. 
Till the poor is wealthy grown, 
And the hermit never alone, — 
The traveller and the road seem one 
With the errand to he done, — 
That were a man's and lover's part, 
That were Freedom's whitest chart. 



COMPENSATION. 

Why should I keep holiday 

When other men have none ? 
Why but because, when these are gay, 

I sit and mourn alone ? 

And why, when mirth unseals all tongues. 

Should mine alone be dumb? 
Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs, 

And now their hour is come. 



78 FORBEARANCE, — THE PARK, 



FORBEARANCE. 

med all the birds wi 
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? 
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? 
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? 
And loved so well a high behavior, 
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 
Nobility more nobly to repay ? 
O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! 



THE PARK. 

The prosperous and beautiful 

To me seem not to wear 
The yoke of conscience masterful, 

Which galls me everywhere. 

I cannot shake off the god ; 

On my neck he makes his seat; 
I look at my face in the glass,— 

My eyes his eyeballs meet. 

Enchanters ! enchantresses ! 

Your gold makes you seem wise ; 
The morning mist within your grounds 

More proudly rolls, more softly lies. 

Yet spake yon purple mountain. 

Yet said yon ancient wood. 
That Night or Day, that Love or Crime, 

Leads all souls to the Grood. 



FORERUNNERS. 79 



FORERUNNERS, 

Long I followed happy guides, 

I could never reach their sides ; 

Their step is forth, and, ere the day 

Breaks up their leaguer, and away. 

Keen my sense, my heart was young, 

Right good-will my sinews strung, 

But no speed of mine avails 

To hunt upon their shining trails. 

On and away, their hasting feet 

Make the morning proud and sweet; 

Flowers they strew, — I catch the scent 5 

Or tone of silver instrument 

Leaves on the wind melodious trace; 

Yet I could never see their face. 

On eastern hills I see their smokes, 

Mixed with mist by distant lochs. 

I met many travellers 

Who the road had surely kept ; 

They saw not my fine revellers, — 

These had crossed them while they slept. 

Some had heard their fair report, 

Li the country or the court. 

Fleetest couriers alive 

Never yet could once arrive, 

As they went or they returned. 

At the house where these sojourned. 

Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, 

Though they are not overtaken ; 

Li sleep their jubilant troop is near, — 

I tuneful voices overhear ; 



80 SURSUM CORDA. 

It may be in wood or waste, — 
At unawares 't is come and past. 
Their near camp my spirit knows 
By signs gracious as rainbows. 
I thenceforward and long after, 
Listen for their harp-like laughter 
And carry in my heart, for days, 
Peace that hallows rudest ways. 



SURSUM CORDA. 

Seek not the spirit, if it hide 

Inexorable to thy zeal : 

Trembler, do not whine and chide; 

Art thou not also real? 

Stoop not then to poor excuse ; 

Turn on the accuser roundly; say, 

^Here am I, here will I abide 

Forever to myself soothfast; 

Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay I ' 

Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast, 

For only it can absolutely ceal. 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 81 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 

"Who gave thee, O Beauty, 
The keys of this breast, — 
Too credulous lover 
Of blest and unblest? 
Say, when in lapsed ages 
Thee knew I of old ? 
Or what was the service 
For which I was sold? 
When first my eyes saw thee, 
I found me thy thrall, 
By magical drawings, 
Sweet tyrant of all ! 
I drank at thy fountain 
False waters of thirst ; 
Thou intimate stranger, 
Thou latest and first ! 
Thy dangerous glances 
Make women of men; 
New-born, we are melting 
Into nature again. 

Lavish, lavish promiser, 
Nigh persuading gods to err! 
Guest of million painted forms, 
Which in turn thy glory warms ! 
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark. 
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's are, 
The swinging spider's silver line, 
The ruby of the drop of wine. 



82 ODE TO BEAUTY. 

The shining pebble of the pond. 
Thou inscribest with a bond, 
In thy momentary play, 
Would bankrupt nature to repay. 

Ah, what avails it 

To hide or to shun 

Whom the Infinite One 

Hath granted his throne ? 

The heaven high over 

Is the deep's lover ; 

The sun and sea, 

Informed by thee, 

Before me run 

And draw me on, 

Yet fly me still, 

As Fate refuses 

To me the heart Fate for me cheeses. 

Is it that my opulent soul 

Was mingled from the generous t, hole 5 

Sea-valleys and the deep of skies 

Furnished several supplies ; 

And the sands whereof I 'm ma^^f/ 

Draw me to them, self -betrayed r 

I turn the proud portfolio 

Which holds the grand designs 

Oi Salvator, of Guercino, 

And Piranesi's lines. 

I hear the lofty pseans 

Of the masters of the shell, 

Who heard the starry music 

And recount the numbers well; 

Olympian bards who sung 

Divine Ideas below, 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 83 

Which always find us young 

And always keep us so. 

Oft, in streets or humblest places, 

I detect far-wandered graces, 

Which, from Eden wide astray, 

In lowly homes have lost their way= 

Thee gliding through the sea of fornic, 
Like the lightning through the storm, 
Somewhat not to be possessed, 
Somewhat not to be caressed, 
No feet so fleet could ever find, 
No perfect form could ever bind. 
Thou eternal fugitive, 
Hovering over all that live, 
Quick and skilful to inspire 
Sweet, extravagant desire, 
Starry space and lily-bell 
Filling with thy roseate smell, 
Wilt not give the lips to taste 
Of the nectar which thou hast. 

All that's good and great with thee 

Works in close conspiracy; 

Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely 

To report thy features only. 

And the cold and purple morning 

Itself with thoughts of thee adorning; 

The leafy dell, the city mart, 

Equal trophies of thine art ; 

E'en the flowing azure air 

Thou hast touched for my despair ; 

And, if I languish into dreams, 

Again I meet the ardent beams. 



84 GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 

Queen of things ! I dare not die 
In Being's deeps past ear and eyei 
Lest there I find the same deceiver, 
And be the sport of Fate forever. 
Dread Power, but dear ! if God thou be^ 
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me I 



GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 

Give all to love; 

Obey thy heart ; 

Friends, kindred, days, 

Estate, good-fame. 

Plans, credit and the Muse, •- 

Nothing refuse. 

'T is a brave master ; 

Let it have scope: 

Follow it utterly, 

Hope beyond hope : 

High and more high 

It dives into noon, 

With wing unspent. 

Untold intent ; 

But it is a god. 

Knows its own path 

And the outlets of the sky. 

It was never for the meanj 
It requireth courage stout. 



GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 86 

Souls above doubt, 
Valor unbending, 
Id will reward, — 
They shall return 
More than they were, • 
And ever ascending. 

Leave all for love ; 

Yet, hear me, yet, 

One word more thy heart behoved, 

One pulse more of firm endeavor,— 

Keep thee to-day, 

To-morrow, forever, 

Free as an Arab 

Of thy beloved. 

Cling with life to the maid; 

But when the surprise. 

First vague shadow^ of surmise 

Flits across her bosom young, 

Of a joy apart from thee, 

Free be she, fancy-free ; 

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, 

Nor the palest rose she flung 

From her summer diadem. 

Though thou loved her as thyself, 

As a self of purer clay. 

Though her parting dims the day, 

Stealing grace from all alive ; 

Heartily know, 

When half-gods go, 

The gods arrive. 



86 TO ELLEN, 

TO ELLEN 

AT THE SOUTH. 

The green grass is bowing, 

The morning wind is in it ; 
'T is a tune worth thy knowing, 

Though it change every minute^ 

'T is a tune of the Spring ; 

Every year plays it over 
To the robin on the wing, 

And to the pausing lover. 

O'er ten thousand, thousand acres, 
Goes light the nimble zephyr ; 

The Flowers — tiny sect of Shakers — 
Worship him ever. 

Hark to the winning sound! 

They summon thee, dearest, — 
Saying, * We have dressed for thee the ground, 

Nor yet thou appearest. 

* O hasten ;' 't is our time. 

Ere yet the red Summer 
Scorch our delicate prime, 

Loved of bee, — the tawny hummer. 

* O pride of thy race ! 

Sad, in sooth, it were to ours, 
If our brief tribe miss thy face, 
We poor New England flowers. 



TO EVA. 87 

* Fairest, choose the fairest members 

Of our lithe society ; 
June's glories and September's 
Show our love and piety. 

'Thou shalt command us all, — 

AjDril's cowslip, summer's clover, 
To the gertian in the fall, 

Blue-eyed pet of bine-eyed lover. 

* O come, then, quickly come ! 

"We are budding, we are blowing; 
And the wind that we perfume 

Sings a tune that 's worth the knowingo* 



TO EVA. 

O FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes 
Were kindled in the upper skies 

At the same torch that lighted mine | 
For so I must interpret still 
Thy sweet dominion o'er my willj 

A sympathy divine. 

Ah! let me blameless gaze upon 
Features thab seem at heart my own ; 

Nor fear those watchful sentinels, 
Who charm the more their glance forbids. 
Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids, 

With fire that draws while it repels. 



THINE EYES STILL SHINEB. 



THE AMULET. 

Your picture smiles as first it smiled; 

The ring you gave is still the same ; 
Your letter tells, O changing child! 

No tidings since it came. 

Give me an amulet 

That keeps intelligence with you, — 
Red when you love, and rosier red, 

And when you love not, pale and blu©^ 

Alas ! that neither bonds nor vows 

Can certify possession ; 
Torments me still the fear that love 

Died in its last expression. 



THINE EYES STILL SHINED. 

Thine eyes still shined for me, though far 
I lonely roved the land or sea: 

As I behold yon evening star, 
Which yet beholds not me. 

This morn I climbed the misty hill 
And roamed the pastures through ; 

How danced thy form before my path 
Amidst the deep-eyed dew ! 



EROS. — HERMIONE. 89 

When the redbird spread his sable wing. 
And showed his side of flame ; 

When the rosebud ripened to the rose. 
In both I read thy name. 



EROS. 

The sense of the world is short, — 
Long and various the report, — 

To love and be beloved; 
Men and gods have not outlearned it; 
And, how oft soe'er they've turned it, 

Not to be improved. 



HERMIONE. 

On a mound an Arab lay, 

And sung his sweet regrets 

And told his amulets: 

The summer bird 

His sorrow heard, 

And, when he heaved* a sigh profound, 

The sympathetic swallow swept the ground, 

'5 If it be, as they said, she was not fair, 
Beauty's not beautiful to me. 
But sceptred genius, aye inorbed. 
Culminating in her sphere. 



90 HERMIONE. 

This Hermione absorbed 
The lustre of the land and oceaHj 
Hills and islands, cloud and tree. 
In her form and motion. 

^I ask no bauble miniature, 
Nor ringlets dead 
Shorn from her comely head. 
Now that morning not disdains 
Mountains and the misty plains 
Her colossal portraiture ; 
They her heralds be, 
Steeped in her quality, 
And singers of her fame 
Who is their Muse and dame. 

^ Higher, dear swallows ! mind not what I say. 
Ah ! heedless how the weak are strong, 
Say, was it just, 

In thee to frame, in me to trust, 
Thou to the Syrian couldst belong? 

I am of a lineage 

That each for each doth fast engage; 
In old Bassora's schools, I seemed 
Hermit vowed to books and gloom, — 
Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom. 
I was by thy touch redeemed ; 
When thy meteor glances came, 
We talked at large of worldly fate, 
And drew truly every trait. 

Once I dwelt apart, 
Now I live with all; 



EERMIONE. 91 

As shepherd's lamp on far hill-side 
Seems, by the traveller espied, 
A door into the mountain heart, 
So didst thou quarry and unlock 
Highways for me through the rock. 

*Now, deceived, thou wanderest 
In strange lands unblest ; 
And my kindred come to soothe me. 
Southwind is my next of blood ; 
He is come through fragrant wood, 
Drugged with spice from climates warnig 
And in every twinkling glade, 
And twilight nook. 
Unveils thy form. 
Out of the forest way 
Forth paced it yesterday ; 
And when I sat by the watercourse. 
Watching the daylight fade, 
It throbbed up from the brook, 

^ River and rose and crag and birdj 

Frost and sun and eldest night, 

To me their aid preferred, 

To me their comfort plight ; — 
^^ Courage ! we are thine allies, 

And with this hint be wise, — 

The chains of kind 

The distant bind ; 

Deed thou doest she must do, 

Above her will, be true ; 

And, in her strict resort 

To winds and waterfalls 



92 THE INITIAL LOVE, 

And autumn's sunlit festivals, 

To musicj and to music's thought. 

Inextricably bound, 

She shall find thee, and be found. 

Follow not her flying feet ; 

Come to us herself to meet." * 



INITIAL, DAEMONIC, AND CELESTIAL LOVE 

I. 

THE INITIAL LOVE. 

Venus, when her son was lost, 

Cried him up and down the coast, 

In hamlets, palaces and parks, 

And told the truant by his marks, — 

Golden curls, and quiver and bow. 

This befeU how long ago! 

Time and tide are strangely changed, 

Men and manners much deranged : 

None will now find Cupid latent 

By this foolish antique patent. 

He came late along the waste. 

Shod like a traveller for haste ; 

With malice dared me to proclaim him. 

That the maids and boys might name him. 

Boy no more, he wears all coats, 
Frocks and blouses, capes, capotes ; 
He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand, 
Nor chaplet on his head or hand. 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 93 

I^eave his weeds and heed his eyes, — ■ 
All the rest he can disguise. 
In the pit of his eye 's a spark 
Would bring back day if it were dark; 
And, if I tell you all my thought, 
Though I comprehend it not, 
In those unfathomable orbs 
Every function he absorbs ; 
Doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot^ 
And write, and reason, and compute. 
And ride, and run, and have, and hold, 
And whine, and flatter, and regret, 
And kiss, and couple, and beget, 
By those roving eyeballs bold. 

Undaunted are their courages, 

Right Cossacks in their forages ; 

Fleeter they than any creature, — 

They are his steeds, and not his feature | 

Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting, 

Restless, predatory, hasting ; 

And they pounce on other eyes 

As lions on their prey ; 

And round their circles is writj, 

Plainer than the day, 

Underneath, within, above, — 

Love — love — love — love. 

He lives in his eyes ; 

There doth digest, and work, and spinj 

And buy, and sell, and lose, and win ; 

He rolls them with delighted motion, 

Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean. 

Yet holds he them with tortest rein, 

That they may seize and entertain 



94 THE INITIAL LOVE, 

The glance that to their glance opposes, 
Like fiery honey sucked from roses. 
He palmistry can understand, 
Imbibing virtue by his hand 
As if it were a hving root; 
The pulse of hands will make him mute 5 
With all his force he gathers balms 
Into those wise, thrilling palms. 

Cupid is a casuist, * 

A mystic and a cabalist, — 

Can your lurking thought surprise, 

And interpret your device. 

He is versed in occult science, 

In magic and in clairvoyance. 

Oft he keeps his fine ear strained, 

And Reason on her tiptoe pained 

For aery intelligence, 

And for strange coincidence. 

But it touches his quick heart 

When Fate by omens takes his part, 

And chance-dropped hints from Nature's sphere 

Deeply soothe his anxious ear. 

Heralds high before him run ; 

He has ushers many a one ; 

He spreads his welcome where he goes, 

And touches all things with his rose. 

All things wait for and divine him, — 

How shall I dare to malign him, 

Or accuse the god of sport? 

I must end my true report. 

Painting him from head to foot. 

In as far as I took note, 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 95 

Trusting well the matchless power 
Of this young-eyed emperor 
Will clear his fame from every cloud 
With the bards and with the crowd. 

He is wilful, mutable, 

Shy, untamed, inscrutable, 

Swifter-fashioned than the fairies, 

Substance mixed of pure contraries ; 

His vice some elder virtue's token, 

And his good is evil-spoken. 

Failing sometimes of his own, 

He is headstrong and alone ; 

He affects the wood and wild. 

Like a flower-hunting child; 

Buries himself in summer waves, 

In trees, with beasts, in mines and caves. 

Loves nature like a horned cow, 

Bird, or deer, or caribou. 

Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses 1 

He has a total world of wit ; 

O how wise are his discourses ! 

But he is the arch-hypocrite, 

And, through all science and all art. 

Seeks alone his counterpart. 

He is a Pundit of the East, 

He is an augur and a priest. 

And his soul will melt in prayer, 

But word and wisdom is a snare 5 

Corrupted by the present toy 

He follows joy, and only joy. 



THE INITIAL LOVE. 

There is no mask but he will wear ; 

He invented oaths to swear ; 

He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays. 

And holds all stars in his embrace. 

He takes a sovran privilege 

Not allowed to any liege ; 

For Cupid goes behind all law, 

And right into himself does draw°, 

For he is sovereignly allied, — 

Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,— => 

And interchangeably at one 

With every king on every throne, 

That no god dare say him nay, 

Or see the fault, or seen betray: 

He has the Muses by the heart. 

And the stern Parcse on his part. 

His many signs cannot be told ; 

He has not one mode, but manifold. 

Many fashions and addresses. 

Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses. 

He will preach like a friar, 

And jump like Harlequin; 

He will read like a crier, 

And fight like a Paladin. 

Boundless is his memory ; 

Plans immense his term prolong | 

He is not of counted age. 

Meaning always to be young. 

And his wish is intimacy, 

Intimater intimacy, 

And a stricter privacy ; 

The impossible shall yet be done, 

And, being two, shall still be onco 



THE DAEMONIC LOVE. 97 

As the wave breaks to foam on shelves, 
Then runs into a wave again, 
So lovers melt their sundered selves, 
Yet melted would be twain. 



II. 

THE DEMONIC LOVE. 

Man was made of social earth, 

Child and brother from his birth, 

Tethered by a liquid cord 

Of blood through veins of kindred pouredo 

Next his heart the fireside band 

Of mother, father, sister, stand ; 

Names from awful childhood heard 

Throbs of a wild religion stirred ; — 

Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice ; 

Till dangerous Beauty came, at last, 

Till Beauty came to snap all ties ; 

The maid, abolishing the past, 

With lotus wine obliterates 

Dear memory's stone-incarved traits. 

And, by herself, supplants alone 

Friends year by year more inly known. 

When her calm eyes opened bright, 

All else grew foreign in their light. 

It was ever the self-same tale. 

The first experience will not fail; 

Only two in the garden walked. 

And with snake and seraph talked. 



98 THE DJEMONIC LOVE. 

Close, close to men, 

Like undulating layer of air, 

Right above their heads, 

The potent plain of Daemons spreads. 

Stands to each human soul its own. 

For watch and ward and furtherance, 

In the snares of Nature's dance ; 

And the lustre and the grace 

To fascinate each youthful heart. 

Beaming from its counterpart. 

Translucent through the mortal covers, 

Is the Daemon's form and face. 

To and fro the Genius hies, — 

A gleam which plays and hovers 

Over the maiden's head. 

And dips sometimes as low as to her eyeso 

Unknown, albeit lying near. 

To men, the path to the Daemon sphere ; 

And they that swiftly come and go 

Leave no track on the heavenly snow. 

Sometimes the airy synod bends, 

And the mighty choir descends. 

And the brains of men thenceforth, 

In crowded and in still resorts. 

Teem with unwonted thoughts : 

As, when a shower of meteors 

Cross the orbit of the earth, 

And, lit by fringent air. 

Blaze near and far. 

Mortals deem the planets bright 

Have slipped their sacred bars. 

And the lone seaman all the night 

Sails, astonished, amid stars. 



THE DAEMONIC LOVE. 99 

Beauty of a richer vein, 

Graces of a subtler strain, 

Unto men these moonnien lend, 

And our shrinking sky extend. 

So is man's narrow path 

By strength and terror skirted ; 

Also (from the song the wrath 

Of the Genii be averted ! 

The Muse the truth uncolored speaking,) 

The Daemons are self-seeking: 

Their fierce and limitary will 

Draws men to their likeness still. 

The erring painter made Love blind, — 

Highest Love who shines on all; 

Him, radiant, sharpest-sighted god, 

None can bewilder; 

Whose eyes pierce 

The universe. 

Path-finder, road-builder, 

Mediator, royal giver ; 

Rightly seeing, rightly seen, 

Of joyful and transparent mien 

'Tis a sparkle passing 

From each to each, from thee to me. 

To and fro perpetually ; 

Sharing all, daring ail, 

Levelling, displacing 

Each obstruction, it unites 

Equals remote, and seeming oppositeSo 

And ever and forever Love 

Delights to build a road : 

Unheeded Danger near him strides, 

Love laughs, and on a lion rides. 



100 THE DEMONIC LOVE. 

But Cupid wears another face, 

Born into Dsemons less divine s 

His roses bleach apace, 

His nectar smacks of wine. 

The Daemon ever builds a wall, 

Himself encloses and includes, 

Solitude in solitudes : 

In like sort his love doth fall. 

He doth elect 

The beautiful and fortunate. 

And the sons of intellect, 

And the souls of ample fate, 

Who the Future's gates unbar, — => 

Minions of the Morning Star. 

In his prowess he exults, 

And the multitude insults. 

His impatient looks devour 

Oft the humble and the poor; 

And, seeing his eye glare, 

They drop their few pale flowers, 

Gathered with hope to please, 

Along the mountain towers, — 

Lose courage, and despair. 

He will never be gainsaid, — 

Pitiless, will not be stayed ; 

His hot tyranny 

Burns up every other tie. 

Therefore comes an hour from Jove 

Which his ruthless will defies, 

And the dogs of Fate unties. 

Shiver the palaces of glass ; 

Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls. 

Where in bright Art each god and sibjfl dwelt 

Secure as in the zodiac's belt ; 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE, 101 

And the galleries and halls, 
Wherem every siren sung, 
Like a meteor pass. 
For this fortune wanted root 
In the core of God's abysm, — 
Was a weed of self and schism ; 
And ever the Daemonic Love 
Is the ancestor of wars 
And the parent of remorse. 



III. 

THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

But God said, 
^I will have a purer gift; 
There is smoke in the flame ; 
New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, 
And love without a name. 
Fond children, ye desire 
To please each other well; 
Another round, a higher, 
Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair. 
And selfish preference forbear; 
And in right deserving, 
And without a swerving 
Each from your proper state, 
Weave roses for your mate. 

*Deep, deep are loving eyes. 
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet | 
And the point is paradise, 



102 THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

Where their glances meet : 

Their reach shall yet be more profound, 

And a vision without bound : 

The axis of those eyes sun-clear 

Be the axis of the sphere : 

So shall the lights ye pour amain 

Go, without check or intervals, 

Through from the empyrean walls 

Unto the same again.' 

Higher far into the pure realm, 

Over sun and star. 

Over the flickering Daemon film, 

Thou must mount for love ; 

Into vision where all form 

In one only form dissolves ; 

In a region where the wheel 

On which all beings ride 

Visibly revolves ; 

Where the starred, eternal worm 

Girds the world with bound and termi 

Where unlike things are like ; 

Where good and ill. 

And joy and moan, 

Melt into one. 

There Past, Present, Future, shoot 
Triple blossoms from one root ; 
Substances at base divided, 
In their summits are united; 
There the holy essence rolls, 
One through separated souls ; 
And the sunny ^on sleeps 



THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 103 

Folding Nature in its deeps, 

And every fair and every good. 

Known in part, or known impure, 

To men below. 

In their archetypes endure. 

The race of gods, 

Or those we erring own. 

Are shadows flitting up and down 

In the still abodes. 

The circles of that sea are laws 

"Which publish and which hide the cause. 

Pray for a beam 

Out of that sphere, 

Thee to guide and to redeem. 

O, what a load 

Of care and toil, 

By lying use bestowed, 

From his shoulders falls who sees 

The true astronomy, 

The period of peace. 

Counsel which the ages kept 

Shall the well-born soul accept. 

As the overhanging trees 

Fill the lake with images, — 

As garment draws the garment's hem? 

Men their fortunes bring with them. 

By right or wrong. 

Lands and goods go to the strong. 

Property will brutely draw 

Still to the proprietor; 

Silver to silver creep and wind, 

And kind to kind. 



104 THE CELESTIAL LOVE. 

Nor less the eternal poles 
Of tendency distribute souls. 
There need no vows to bind 
Whom not each other seek, but find. 
They give and take no pledge or oath, - 
Nature is the bond of both: 
No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns, - 
Their noble meanings are their pawns. 
Plain and cold is their address, 
Power have they for tenderness ; 
And, so thoroughly is known 
Each other's counsel by his own. 
They can parley without meeting ; 
Need is none of forms of greeting; 
They can well communicate 
In their innermost estate ; 
When each the other shall avoid. 
Shall each by each be most enjoyed. 

Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves 
Do these celebrate their loves : 
Not by jewels, feasts and savors, 
Not by ribbons or by favors. 
But by the sun-spark on the sea. 
And the cloud-shadow on the lea. 
The soothing lapse of morn to mirk, 
And the cheerful round of work. 
Their cords of love so public are, 
They intertwine the farthest star: 
The throbbing sea, the quaking earth, 
Yield sympathy and signs of mirth; 
Is none so high, so mean is none, 
But feels and seals this union; 



THE APOLOGY. 105 

Even the fell Furies are appeased, 
The good applaud, the lost are eased. 

Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond. 
Bound for the just, but not beyond; 
Not glad, as the low-loving herd. 
Of self in other still preferred, 
But they have heartily designed 
The benefit of broad mankind. 
And they serve men austerely, 
After their own genius, clearly, 
Without a false humility; 
For this is Love's nobility, — 
Not to scatter bread and gold, 
Goods and raiment bought and sold; 
But to hold fast his simple sense, 
And speak the speech of innocence. 
And with hand and body and blood, 
To make his bosom-counsel good. 
He that feeds men serveth few ; 
He serves all who dares be true. 



THE APOLOGY. 

Think me not unkind and rude 

That I walk alone in grove and glen ; 

I go to the god of the wood 
To fetch his word to men. 

Tax not my sloth that I 

Fold my arms beside the brook; 



106 MERLIN. 

Each cloud that floated in the sky 
Writes a letter in my book. 

Chide me not, laborious band, 
For the idle flowers I brought ; 

Every aster in my hand 

Goes home loaded with a thought. 

There was never mystery 

But 't is figured in the flowers ; 

Was never secret history 

But birds tell it in the bowers. 

One harvest from thy field 

Homeward brought the oxen strong | 
A second crop thine acres yield, 

Which I gather in a song. 



MERLIN. 



Thy trivial harp will never please 

Or fill my craving ear ; 

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze^ 

Free, peremptory, clear. 

No jingling serenader's art. 

Nor tinkle of piano strings, 

Can make the wild blood start 

In its mystic springs. 

The kingly bard 

Must smite the chords rudely and hard. 



MERLIN. 107 

As with hammer or with mace ; 

That they may render back 

Artful thunder, which conveys 

Secrets of the solar track, 

Sparks of the supersolar blaze. 

Merlin's blows are strokes of fate, 

Chiming with the forest tone, 

When boughs buffet boughs in the wood ; 

Chiming with the gasp and moan 

Of the ice-imprisoned flood ; 

With the pulse of manly hearts; 

With the voice of orators ; 

With the din of city arts ; 

With the cannonade of wars ; 

With the marches of the brave ; 

And prayers of might from martyrs' cavOo 

Great is the art, 

Great be the manners, of the bard. 

He shall not his brain encumber 

With the coil of rhythm and number; 

But, leaving rule and pale forethought, 

He shall aye climb 

For his rhyme. 
' Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, 
'In to the upper doors, 

Nor count compartments of the floors., 

But mount to paradise 

By the stairway of surprise.' 

Blameless master of the games, 
King of sport that never shames, 
He shall daily joy dispense 
Hid in song's sweet influence. 



108 MERLIN. 

Forms more cheerly live and go, 

What time the subtle mind 

Sings aloud the tune whereto 

Their pulses beat, 

And march their fett, 

And their members are combined. 

By Sybarites beguiled, 
He shall no task decline ; 
Merlin's mighty line 
Extremes of nature reconciled, — 
Bereaved a tyrant of his will, 
And made the lion mild. 
Songs can the tempest still. 
Scattered on the stormy air, 
Mould the year to fair increase. 
And bring in poetic peace. 

He shall not seek to weave, 

In weak, unhappy times, 

Efficacious rhymes ; 

Wait his returning strength. 

Bird that from the nadir's floor 

To the zenith's top can soar, — 

The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that 

journey's length. 
Nor profane aifect to hit 
Or compass that, by meddling wit, 
Which only the propitious mind 
Publishes when 't is inclined. 
There are open hours 
When the God's will sallies free. 
And the dull idiot might see 



MERLIN. 109 

The flowing fortunes of a thousand years ; — «• 

Sudden, at unawares, 

Self -moved, fly-to the doors, 

Nor sword of angels could reveal 

What they conceal. 



MERLIN. 

II. 

The rhyme of the poet 

Modulates the kmg's affairs ; 

Balance-loving Nature 

Made all things in pairs. 

To every foot its antipode ; 

Each color with its counter glowed; 

To every tone beat answering tones. 

Higher or graver ; 

Flavor gladly blends with flavor; 

Leaf answers leaf upon the bough ; 

And match the paired cotyledons. 

Hands to hands, and feet to feet, 

In one body grooms and brides ; 

Eldest rite, two married sides 

In every mortal meet. 

Light's far furnace shines, 

Smelting balls and bars, 

Forging double stars. 

Glittering twins and trines. 

The animals are sick with love, 

Lovesick with rhyme; 



110 MERLIN. 

Each with all propitious Time 

Into chorus wove. 

Like the dancers' ordered band, 

Thoughts come also hand in hand | 

In equal couples mated, 

Or else alternated ; 

Adding by their mutual gage. 

One to other, health and age. 

Solitary fancies go 

Short-lived wandering to and fro, 

Most like to bachelors, 

Or an ungiven maid. 

Not ancestors. 

With no posterity to make the lie afraid, 

Or keep truth undecayed. 

Perfect-paired as eagle's wings. 

Justice is the rhyme of things ; 

Trade and counting use 

The self-same tuneful muse ; 

And Nemesis, 

Who with even matches odd, 

Who athwart space redresses 

The partial wrong, 

Fills the just period. 

And finishes the song. 

Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife, 
Murmur in the house of life, 
Sung by the Sisters as they spin; 
In perfect time and measure they 
Build and unbuild our echoing clay. 
As the two twilights of the day 
Fold us music- drunken in. 



BACCHUS. Ill 



BACCHUS. 

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew 

In the belly of the grape, 

Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through 

Under the Andes to the Cape, 

Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. 

Let its grapes the morn salute 

From a nocturnal root, 

Which feels the acrid juice 

Of Styx and Erebus ; 

And turns the woe of Night, 

By its own craft, to a more rich delight. 

We buy ashes for bread; 

We buy diluted wine ; 

Give me of the true, — 

Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled 

Among the silver hills of heaven 

Draw everlasting dew ; 

Wine of wine, 

Blood of the world, 

Form of forms, and mould of statures, 

That I intoxicated. 

And by the draught assimilated, 

May float at pleasure through all natures ; 

The bird-language rightly spell, 

And that which roses say so well. 

Wine tha,t is shed 

Like the torrents of the sun 

Up the horizon walls, 



112 BACCHUS. 

Or like the Atlantic streams, which run 
When the South Sea calls. 

Water and bread, 
Food which needs no transmutingj 
Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting, 
Wine which is already man, 
Food which teach and reason can. 

Wine which Music is, — 

Music and wine are one, — 

That I, drinking this. 

Shall hear far Chaos talk with me 5 

Kings unborn shall walk with me ; 

And the poor grass shall plot and plan 

What it will do when it is man. 

Quickened so, will I unlock 

Every crypt of every rock. 

I thank the joyful juice 
For all I know ; — 
Winds of remembering 
Of the ancient being blow, 
And seeming-solid walls of use 
Open and flow. 

Pour, Bacchus ! the remembering wine | 
Retrieve the loss of me and mine ! 
Vine for vine be antidote. 
And the grape requite the lote ! 
Haste to cure the old despair, — 
Reason in Nature's lotus drenched, 
The memory of ages quenched ; 



MEROPS. 113 

Give them again to shine ; 

Let wine repair what this undid ; 

And where the infection slid, 

A dazzling memory revive ; 

Refresh the faded tints, 

Recut the aged prints, 

And write my old adventures with the pen 

Which on the first day drew. 

Upon the tablets blue. 

The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. 



MEROPS. 

What care I, so they stand the same, — = 
Things of the heavenly mind, — 

How long the power to give them name 
Tarries yet behind ? 

Thus far to-day your favors reach, 
O fair, appeasing presences ! 

Ye taught my lips a single speech, 
And a thousand silences. 

Space grants beyond his fated road 
No inch to the god of day ; 

And copious language still bestowed 
One word, no more, to say. 

TOL. IX. 8 



114 SAADL 



SAADI. 

Trees in groves, 
Kine in droves, 

In ocean sport the scaly herds, 
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds, 
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks? 
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks, 
Men consort in camp and town. 
But the poet dwells alone. 

God, who gave to him the lyre, 
Of all mortals the desire. 
For all breathing men's behoof, 
Straitly charged him, ' Sit aloof ; ' 
Annexed a warning, poets say, 
To the bright premium, — 
Ever, when twain together play? 
Shall the harp be dumb. 

Many may come. 

But one shall sing; 

Two touch the string, 

The harp is dumb. 

Though there come a million, 

Wise Saadi dwells alone. 

Yet Saadi loved the race of men, — = 

No churl, immured in cave or den 5 

In bower and hall 

He wants them all. 

Nor can dispense 

With Persia for his audience; 



SAADL 115 

They must give ear, 

Grow red with joy and white with fear ; 

But he has no companion ; 

Come ten, or come a million, 

Good Saadi dwells alone. 

Be thou ware where Saadi dwells 5 

Wisdom of the gods is he, — 

Entertain it reverently. 

Gladly round that golden lamp 

Sylvan deities encamp, 

And simple maids and noble youth 

Are welcome to the man of truth. 

Most welcome they who need him most. 

They feed the spring which they exhaust? 

For greater need 

Draws better deed : 

But, critic, spare thy vanity, 

Nor show thy pompous parts, 

To vex with odious subtlety 

The cheerer of men's hearts. 

Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say 
Endless dirges to decay. 
Never in the blaze of light 
Lose the shudder of midnight ; 
Pale at overflowing noon 
Hear wolves barking at the moon; 
In the bower of dalliance sweet 
Hear the far Avenger's feet : 
And shake before those awful Powers, 
Who in their pride forgive not ours. 
Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach : 
*Bard, when thee would Allah teach. 



116 SAADI. 

And lift thee to his holy mount, 
He sends thee from his bitter fount 
Wormwood, — saying, " Go thy ways § 
Drink not the Malaga of praise, 
But do the deed thy fellows hate, 
' And compromise thy peaceful state; 
• Smite the white breasts which thee fed-, 
Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head 
Of them thou shouldst have comforted 5 
For out of woe and out of crime 
Draws the heart a lore sublime." ' 
And yet it seemeth not to me 
That the high gods love tragedy ; 
For Saadi sat in the sun, 
And thanks was his contrition ; 
For haircloth and for bloody whips, 
Had active hands and smiling lips; 
And yet his runes he rightly read, 
And to his folk his message sped. 
Sunshine in his heart transferred 
Lighted each transparent word. 
And well could honoring Persia learn 
What Saadi wished to say ; 
For Saadi's nightly stars did burn 
Brighter than Dschami's day. 

Whispered the Muse in Saadi's cots 
'O gentle Saadi, listen not, 
Tempted by thy praise of wit, 
Or by thirst and appetite 
For the talents not thine own, 
To sons of contradiction. 
Never, son of eastern morning, 
Follow falshood, follow scorningo 



SAADI. 117 

Denounce who will, who will deny, 
And pile the hills to scale the sky ; 
Let theist, atheist, pantheist, 
Define and wrangle how they list, 
Fierce conserver, fierce destroyer, — 
But thou, joy-giver and en j oyer. 
Unknowing war, unknowing crime, 
Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme; 
Heed not what the brawlers say, 
Heed thou only Saadi's lay. 

*Let the great world bustle on 
With war and trade, with camp and town | 
A thousand men shall dig and eat; 
At forge and furnace thousands sweat; 
And thousands sail the purple sea. 
And give or take the stroke of war. 
Or crowd the market and bazaar ; 
Oft shall war end, and peace return, 
And cities rise where cities burn. 
Ere one man my hill shall climb, 
Who can turn the golden rhyme. 
Let them manage how they may. 
Heed thou only Saadi's lay. 
Seek the living among the dead,— 
Man in man is imprisoned ; 
Barefooted Dervish is not poor, 
If fate unlock his bosom's door, 
So that what his eye hath seen 
His tongue can paint as bright, as keen?, 
And what his tender heart hath felt 
With equal fire thy heart shalt melt. 
For, whom the Muses smile upon, 



118 SAADL 

And touch with soft persuasion, 

His words like a storm-wind can bring 

Terror and beauty on their wing; 

In his every syllable 

Lurketh nature veritable; 

And though he speak in midnight dark,—* 

In heaven no star, on earth no spark,— 

Yet before the listener's eye 

Swims the world in ecstasy, 

The forest waves, the morning breaks, 

The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes, 

Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be, 

And life pulsates in rock or tree. 

Saadi, so far thy words shall reach : 

Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech ! ' 

And thus to Saadi said the Muse : 
* Eat thou the bread which men refuse ; 
Flee from the goods which from thee flee; 
Seek nothing, — Fortune seeketh thee. 
Nor mount, nor dive ; all good things keep 
The midway of the eternal deep. 
Wish not to fill the isles with eyes 
To fetch thee birds of paradise : 
On thine orchard's edge belong 
All the brags of plume and song ; 
"Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass 
For proverbs in the market-place : 
Through mountains bored by regal art^ 
Toil whistles as he drives his cart. 
Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, 
A poet or a friend to find : 
Behold, he watches at the door ! 
Behold his shadow on the floor ! 



HOLIDAYS. 119 

Open innumerable doors 
The heaven where unveiled Allah pours 
The flood of truth, the flood of good, 
The Seraph's and the Cherub's food. 
Those doors are men : the Pariah hind 
Admits thee to the perfect Mind. 
Seek not beyond thy cottage wall 
Redeemers that can yield thee all: 
While thou sittest at thy door 
On the desert's yellow floor, 
Listening to the gray-haired crones, 
Foolish gossips, ancient drones, 
Saadi, see ! they rise in stature 
To the height of mighty Nature, 
And the secret stands revealed 
Fraudulent Time in vain concealed,— 
That blessed gods in servile masks 
Plied for thee thy household tasks/ 



HOLIDAYS. 

From fall to spring, the russet acorn, 
Fruit beloved of maid and boy. 

Lent itself beneath the forest, 
To be the children's toy. 

Pluck it now! In vain, — thou canst not§ 
Its root has pierced yon shady mound ; 

Toy no longer — it has duties ; 
It is anchored in the ground. 



120 XENOPHANES. 

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden, 
Playfellow of young and old, 

Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men, 
More dear to one than mines of goldo 

"Whither went the lovely hoyden? 

Disappeared in blessed wife ; 
Servant to a wooden cradle, 

Living in a baby's life. 

Still thou playest ; — short vacation 
Fate grants each to stand aside; 

Now must thou be man and artist, — 
'T is the turning of the^ tide. 



XENOPHANES. 

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave 

One scent to hyson and to wall-flower. 

One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls, 

One aspect to the desert and the lake. 

It was her stern necessity : all things 

Are of one pattern made ; bird, beast and flower, 

Song, picture, form, space, thought and character 

Deceive us, seeming to be many things. 

And are but one. Beheld far off, they part 

As God and devil ; bring them to the mind, 

They dull its edge with their monotony. 

To knovr one element, explore another. 

And in the second reappears the first. 



THE DAY'S RATION. 121 

The siDecious panorama of a year 
But multiplies the image of a day, — 
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame % 
And universal Nature, through her vast 
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, 
Repeats one note. 



THE DAY'S RATION. 

When I was born, 
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, 
Saying, ' This be thy portion, child ; this chalice, 
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw 
From my great arteries, — nor less, nor more.' 
All substances the cunning chemist Time 
Melts down into that liquor of my life, — 
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty and disgust. 
And whether I am angry or content, 
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt. 
All he distils into sidereal wine 
And brims my little cup •, heedless, alas ! 
Of all he sheds how little it will hold, 
How much runs over on the desert sands. 
Xf a new Muse draw me with splendid ray, 
And I uplift myself into its heaven. 
The needs of the first sight absorb my blood, 
And all the following hours of the day 
Drag a ridiculous age. 

To-day, when friends approach, and every hour 
Brings book, or starbright scroll of genius. 



122 BLIGHT. 

The little cup will hold not a bead more, 

And all the costly liquor runs to waste ; 

Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop 

So to be husbanded for poorer days. 

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice ? 

Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught 

After the master's sketch fills and o'erfills 

My apprehension? Why seek Italy, 

Who cannot circumnavigate the sea 

Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn 

The nearest matters for a thousand days ? 



BLIGHT. 

Give me truths; 
For I am weary of the surfaces, 
And die of inanition. If I knew 
Only the herbs and simples of the wood, 
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony, 
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras, 
Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun.' 

dew. 
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods 
Draw untold juices from the common earth, 
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell 
Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply 
By sweet affinities to human flesh. 
Driving the foe and stablishing the friend, — 
O, that were much, and I could be a part 
Of the round day, related to the sun 



BLIGHT. 123 

And planted world, and full executor 

Of their imperfect functions. 

But these young scholars, who invade our hills. 

Bold as the engineer who fells the wood. 

And travelling often in the cut he makes. 

Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not. 

And all their botany is Latin names. 

The old men studied magic in the flowers, 

And human fortunes in astronomy, 

And an omnipotence in chemistry. 

Preferring things to names, for these were men, 

Were unitarians of the united world. 

And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell. 

They caught the footsteps of the Same. Our eyes 

Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars, 

And strangers to the mystic beast and bird, 

And strangers to the plant and to the mine. 

The injured elements say, ' Not in us ; ' 

And night and day, ocean and continent, 

Fire, plant and mineral say, ^ Not in us ; ' 

And haughtily return us stare for stare. 

For we invade them impiously for gain ; 

"We devastate them unreligiously. 

And coldly ask their pottage, not their love. 

Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us 

Only what to our griping toil is due ; 

But the sweet afiluence of love and song, 

The rich results of the divine consents 

Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover. 

The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld; 

And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves 

And pirates of the universe, shut out 

Daily to a more thin and outward rind. 



124 MUSKETAQUID. 

Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyeSj 

The stunted trees look sick, the summer short, 

Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay, 

And nothing thrives to reach its natural term ; 

And life, shorn of its venerable length, 

Even at its greatest space is a defeat. 

And dies in anger that it was a dupe ; 

And, in its highest noon and wantonness. 

Is early frugal, like a beggar's child; 

Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims 

And prizes of ambition, checks its hand. 

Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, 

Chilled with a miserly comparison 

Of the toy's purchase with the length of life. 



MUSKETAQUID. 

Because I was content with these poor fields. 

Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams. 

And found a home in haunts which others scorned, 

The partial wood-gods overpaid my love. 

And. granted me the freedom of their state, 

And in their secret senate have prevailed 

With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, 

Made moon and planets parties to their bond, 

And through my rock-like, solitary wont 

Shot million rays of thought and tenderness. 

For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the Spring 

Visits the valley ; — break away the clouds, — 

I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air. 



MUSKETAQUID. 125 

And loiter willing by yon loitering streprn. 
Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's birdj 
Blue-coated, — flying before from tree to tree, 
Courageous sing a delicate overture 
To lead the tardy concert of the year. 
Onward and nearer rides the sun of May; 
And wide around, the marriage of the plants 
Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain 
The surge of summer's beauty ; dell and crag, 
Hollow and lake, hill-side and pine arcade, 
Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff 
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours. 

Beneath low hills, in the broad interval 
Through which at will our Indian rivulet 
Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, 
Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies 
Here in pine houses built of new-fallen trees, 
Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. 
Traveller, to thee, perchance, a tedious road, 
Or, it may be, a picture ; to these men, 
The landscape is an armory of pov/ers, 
Which, one by one, they know to draw and use 
They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work ; 
They prove the virtues of each bed of rock, 
And, like the chemist mid his loaded jars, 
Draw from each stratum its adapted use 
To drug their crops or weapon their arts withaL 
They turn the frost upon their chemic heap. 
They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain, 
They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime, 
And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow, 
Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods 



126 MUSKETAQUID. 

O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year, 

They fight the elements with elements, 

(That one would say, meadoTv and forest walked, 

Transmuted in these men to rule their like,) 

And by the order in the field disclose 

The order regnant in the yeoman's braino 

What these strong masters wrote at large in miles, 

I followed in small copy in my acre; 

For there 's no rood has not a star above it ; 

The cordial quality of pear or plum 

Ascends as gladly in a single tree 

As in broad orchards resonant with bees ; 

And every atom poises for itself, 

And for the whole. The gentle deities 

Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds, 

The innumerable tenements of beauty, 

The miracle of generative force, 

Far-reaching concords of astronomy 

Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds; 

Better, the linked purpose of the whole, 

And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty 

In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave. 

The polite found me impolite; the great 

Would mortify me, but in vain ; for still 

I am a willow of the wilderness, 

Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts 

My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, 

A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 

A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, 

Salve my worst wounds. 

For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear : 

'Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie? 



DIRGE. 127 

Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature j)ass 

Into the winter night's extinguished mood? 

Canst thou shine now, then darkle. 

And being latent, feel thyself no less? 

As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye. 

The river, hill, stems, foliage are obscure^ 

Yet envies none, none are unenviable.' 



DIRGE. 

CONCORD, 1838. 

I REACHED the middle of the mount 

Up which the incarnate soul must climb, 

And paused for them, and looked around, 

With me who walked through space and timeo 

Five rosy boys with morning light 

Had leaped from one fair mother's arms, 

Fronted the sun with hope as bright. 

And greeted God with childhood's psalms. 



Knows he who tills this lonely field 

To reap its scanty corn. 
What mystic fruit his acres yield 

At midnight and at morn? 

In the long sunny afternoon 
The plain was fuU of ghosts; 



128 DIRGE. 

I wandered up, I wandered dowUj 
Beset by pensive hosts. 

The winding Concord gleamed below, 

Pouring as wide a flood 
As when my brothers, long ago, 

Came with me to the wood. 

But they are gone, — the holy ones 
Who trod with me this lovely vale 5 

The strong, star-bright companions 
Are silent, low and pale. 

My good, my noble, in their prime, 
Who made this world the feast it waSj 

Who learned with me the lore of time. 
Who loved this dwelling-place ! 

They took this valley for their toy, 
They played with it in every mood; 

A cell for pra/er, a hall for joy, — 
They treated nature as they would. 

They colored the horizon round ; 

Stars flamed and faded as they bade, 
All echoes hearkened for their sound, — 

They made the woodlands glad or mad. 

I touch this flower of silken leaf, 
Which once our childhood knew ; 

Its soft leaves wound me with a grief 
Whose balsam never grew. 



DIRGE. 129 

Hearken to yon pine-warbler 

Singing aloft in the tree ! 
Hearest thou, O traveller, 

What he singeth to me? 

Not unless God made sharp thine ear 

With sorrow such as mine, 
Out of that delicate lay could'st thou 

Its heavy tale divine. 

*Go, lonely man,' it saith; 

' They loved thee from their birth ; 
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith^ — 
There are no such hearts on earth. 

^Ye drew one mother's milk, 
One chamber held ye all; 
A very tender history 

Did in your childhood fall. 

'You cannot unlock your heart, 
The key is gone with them | 
The silent organ loudest chants 
The master's requiem/ 

VOL. K, 9 



130 THRENODY, 



THRENODY. 

The South-wind brings 

Life, sunshine and desire, 

And on every mount and meadow 

Breathes aromatic fire; 

But over the dead he has no powerj 

The lost, the lost, he cannot restore ; 

And, looking over the hills, I mourn 

The darling who shall not return. 

I see my empty house, 

I see my trees repair their boughs; 

^.nd he, the wondrous child, 

"Whose silver warble wild 

Outvalued every pulsing sound 

Within the air's cerulean round, — 

The hyacinthine boy, for whom 

Morn well might break and April blooi%«=« 

The gracious boy, who did adorn 

The world whereinto he was bom, 

And by his countenance repay 

The favor of the loving Day, — ■ 

Has disappeared from the Day's eyei 

Far and wide she cannot find him; 

My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. 

Returned this day, the south wind searches. 

And finds young pines and budding birches; 

But finds not the budding man ; 

Nature, who lost, cannot remake him ; 

Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him ; 

Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. 



THRENODY. 131 

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, 

O, whither tend thy feet? 

I had the right, few days ago, 

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know: 

How have I forfeited the right ? 

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight ? 

I hearken for thy household cheer, 

O eloquent child ! 

"Whose voice, an equal messenger, 

Conveyed thy meaning mild. 

What though the pains and joys 

Whereof it spoke were toys 

Fitting his age and ken, 

Yet fairest dames and bearded men, 

Who heard the sweet request, 

So gentle, wise and grave, 

Bended with joy to his behest 

And let the world's affairs go by, 

A while to share his cordial game. 

Or mend his wicker wagon-frame, 

Still plotting how their hungry ear 

That winsome voice again might hear 5 

For his lips could well pronounce 

Words that were persuasions. 

Gentlest guardians marked serene 
His early hope, Ms liberal mien ; 
Took counsel from his guiding eyes 
To make this wisdom earthly wise. 
Ah, vainly do these eyes recall 
The school-march, each day's festival. 
When every morn my bosom glowed 
To watch the convoy on the road ; 



132 THRENODY. 

The babe in willow wagon closed^ 
With rolling eyes and face composed % 
With children forward and behind, 
Like Cupids studiously inclined ; 
And he the chieftain paced beside. 
The centre of the troop allied, 
With sunny face of sweet repose, 
To guard the babe from fancied foeSo 
The little captain innocent 
Took the eye with him as he went; 
Each village senior paused to scan 
And speak the lovely caravan. 
From the window I look out 
To mark thy beautiful parade, 
Stately matching in cap and coat 
To some tune by fairies played ; — 
A music heard by thee alone 
To works as noble led thee on. 

Now Love and Pride, alas ! in vain, 
Up and down their glances strain. 
The painted sled stands where it stood 5 
The kennel by the corded wood ; 
His gathered sticks to stanch the wall 
Of the snow-tower, when snow should fallj 
The ominous hole he dug in the sand, 
And childhood's castles built or planned; 
His daily haunts I well discern, — 
The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,- — 
And every inch of garden ground 
Paced by the blessed feet around, 
From the roadside to the brook 
Whereinto he loved to look. 



THRENODY. 133 

Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged ; 
The wintry garden lies unchanged ; 
The brook into the stream runs on ; 
But the deep-eyed boy is gone. 

On that shaded day, 

Dark with more clouds than tempests are, 

When thou didst yield thy innocent breath 

In birdlike heaving? unto death, 

Night came, and Nature had not thee ; 

I said, ' We are mates in misery.' 

The morrow dawned with needless glow ; 

Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow; 

Each tramper started ; but the feet 

Of the most beautiful and sweet 

Of human youth had left the hill 

And garden, — they were bound and still. 

There's not a sparrow or a wren, 

There's not a blade of autumn grain, 

Which the four seasons do not tend 

And tides of life and increase lend ; 

And every chick of every bird, 

And weed and rock-moss is preferred. 

O ostrich-like forgetfulness ! 

O loss of larger in the less! 

Was there no star that could be sent, 

No watcher in the firmament, 

No angel from the countless host 

That loiters round the crystal coast. 

Could stoop to heal that only child, 

Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, 

And keep the blossom of the earth. 

Which all her harvests were not worth? 



134 THRENODY. 

Not mine, — I never called thee mine, 

But Nature's heir, — if I repine, 

And seeing rashly torn and moved 

Not what I made, but what I loved. 

Grow early old with grief that thou 

Must to the wastes of Nature go, — 

'T is because a general hope 

Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope. 

For flattering planets seemed to say 

This child should ills of ages stay, 

By wondrous tongue, and guided pen, 

Bring the flown Muses back to men. 

Perchance not he but Nature ailed, 

The world and not the infant failed. 

It was not ripe yet to sustain 

A genius of so fine a strain, 

Who gazed upon the sun and moon 

As if he came unto his own, 

And, pregnant with his grander thought, 

Brought the old order into doubt. 

His beauty once their beauty tried ; 

They could not feed him, and he died, 

And wandered backward as in scorn, 

To wait an aeon to be born. 

Ill day which made this beauty waste, 

Plight broken, this high face defaced ! 

Some went and came about the dead; 

And some in books of solace read; 

Some to their friends the tidings say; 

Some went to write, some went to pray; 

One tarried here, there hurried one ; 

But their heart abode with none. 

Covetous death bereaved us all. 

To aggrandize one funeral. 



THRENODY. 135 

The eager fate which carried theo 
Took the largest part of me : 
For this losing is true dying ; 
This is lordly man's down-lying, 
This his slow but sure reclining, 
Star by star his world resigning. 

child of paradise, 

Boy who made dear his father's home, 

In whose deep eyes 

Men read the welfare of the times to come, 

1 am too much bereft. 

The world dishonored thou hast left. 

O truth's and nature's costly lie ! 

O trusted broken prophecy ! 

O richest fortune sourly crossed ! 

Born for the future, to the future lost ! 

The deep Heart answered, 'Weepest thou? 

Worthier cause for passion wild 

If I had not taken the child. 

And deemest thou as those who pore, 

With aged eyes, short way before, — 

Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast 

Of matter, and thy darling lost ? 

Taught he not thee — the man of eld, 

Whose eyes within his eyes beheld 

Heaven's numerous hierarchy span 

The mystic gulf from God to man ? 

To be alone wilt thou begin 

When worlds of lovers hem thee in? 

To-morrow, when the masks shall fall 

That dizen Nature's carnival. 



136 THRENODY. 

The pure shall see by their own will, 

Which overflowing Love shall fill, 

'Tis not within the force of fate 

The fate-conjoined to separate. 

But thou, my votary, weejjest thou? 

I gave thee sight — where is it now ? 

I taught thy heart beyond the reach 

Of ritual, bible, or of speech ; 

Wrote in thy mind's transparent table. 

As far as the incommunicable ; 

Taught thee each private sign to raise 

Lit by the supersolar blaze. 

Past utterance, and past belief, 

And past the blasphemy of grief, 

The mysteries of Nature's heart ; 

And though no Muse can these impart, 

Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast. 

And all is clear from east to west. 

' I came to thee as to a friend ; 
Dearest, to thee I did not send 
Tutors, but a joyful eye. 
Innocence that matched the sky, 
Lovely locks, a form of wonder, 
Laughter rich as woodland thunder, 
That thou might'st entertain apart 
The richest flowering of all art : 
And, as the great all-loving Day 
Through smallest chambers takes its way, 
That thou might'st break thy daily bread 
With prophet, savior and head; 
That thou might'st cherish for thine own 
The riches of sweet Mary's Son, 
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon. 



THRENODY. 137 

And thoiightest thou such guest 

Would in thy hall take up his rest? 

Would rushing life forget her laws. 

Fate's glowing revolution pause ? 

High omens ask diviner guess ; 

Not to be conned to tediousness. 

And know my higher gifts unbind 

The zone that girds the incarnate mind. 

When the scanty shores are full 

With Thought's perilous, whirling pool; 

When frail Nature can no more, 

Then the Spirit strikes the hour : 

My servant Death, with solving rite, 

Pours finite into infinite. 

Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, 

Whose streams through nature circling go? 

Nail the wild star to its track 

On the half-climbed zodiac ? 

Light is light which radiates. 

Blood is blood which circulates, 

Life is life which generates, 

And many-seeming life is one, — 

Wilt thou transfix and make it none? 

Its onward force too starkly pent 

In figure, bone, and lineament ? 

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, 

Talker ! the unreplying Fate ? 

Nor see the genius of the whole 

Ascendant in the private soul. 

Beckon it when to go and come, 

Self-announced its hour of doom? 

Fair the soul's recess and shrine^ 

Magic-built to last a season; 



138 THRENODY. 

Masterpiece of love benign, 

Fairer that expansive reason 

Whose omen 'tis, and sign. 

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know 

What rainbows teach, a;.id sunsets show ? 

Verdict which accumulates 

From lengthening scroll of human fates, 

Voice of earth to earth returned, 

Prayers of saints that inly burned, — 

Saying, What is excellent, 

As God lives, is pennanent y 

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 

Heart* s love will meet thee again. 

Revere the Maker ; fetch thine eye 

Up to his style, and manners of the skjo 

Not of adamant and gold 

Built he heaven stark and cold ; 

No, but a nest of bending reeds, 

Flowering grass and scented weeds ; 

Or like a traveller's fleeing tent. 

Or bow above the tempest bent ; 

Built of tears and sacred flames. 

And virtue reaching to its aims ; 

Built of furtherance and pursuing, 

Not of spent deeds, but of doing. 

Silent rushes the swift Lord 

Through ruined systems still restored, 

Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless. 

Plants with worlds the wilderness ; 

Waters with tsars of ancient sorrow 

Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. 

House and tenant go to ground. 

Lost in God, in Godhead found.' 



CONCORD HYMN. 139 



CONCORD HYMN: 

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION' OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, 
APRIL 19, 1836. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 

And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creepso 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone ; 
That memory may their deed redeem. 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and theeo 



n. 

MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES. 



MAY-DAY. 

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Springe 

With sudden passion languishing, 

Teaching barren moors to smile, 

Painting pictures mile on mile, 

Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths. 

Whence a smokeless incense breathes. 

The air is full of whistlings bland ; 

What was that I heard 

Out of the hazy land? 

Harp of the wind, or song of bird, 

Or vagrant booming of the air. 

Voice of a meteor lost in day? 

Such tidings of the starry sphere 

Can this elastic air convey. 

Or haply 't was the cannonade 

Of the pent and darkened lake, 

Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade, 

Whose deeps, till beams of noonday breakj, 

Afflicted moan, and latest hold 

Even into May the iceberg cold. 

Was it a squirrel's pettish bark, 

Or clarionet of jay ? or hark 

Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads. 

Steering north with raucous cry 

Through tracts and provinces of sky, 

Every night alighting down 



144 MAY-DAY. 

In new landscapes of romance, 
Where darkling feed the clamorous clans 
By lonely lakes to men miknown. 
Come the tumult whence it will, 
Voice of sport, or rush of wings, 
It is a sound, it is a token 
That the marble sleep is broken, 
And a change has passed on things. 

When late I walked, in earlier days, 
All was stiff and stark; 
Knee-deep snows choked all the ways. 
In the sky no spark ; 
Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods. 
Struggling through the drifted roads ; 
The whited desert knew me not, 
Snow-ridges masked each darling spot*, 
The summer dells, by genius haunted, 
One arctic moon had disenchanted. 
All the sweet secrets therein hid 
By Fancy, ghastly spells undid. 
Eldest mason. Frost, had piled 
Swift cathedrals in the wild; 
The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts 
In the star-lit minster aisled. 
I found no joy : the icy wind 
Might rule the forest to his mind. 
Who would freeze on frozen lakes ? 
Back to books and sheltered home. 
And wood-fire flickering on the walls. 
To hear, when, 'mid our talk and gameSj 
Without the baffled north-wind calls. 
But soft ! a sultry morning breaks ; 



MAY-DAY. 145 

The ground-pines wash their rusty green, 
The maple-tops their crimson tint, 
On the soft path each track is seen, 
The girl's foot leaves its neater print. 
The pebble loosened from the frost 
Asks of the urchin to be tost. 
In flint and marble beats a heart, 
The kind Earth takes her children's part, 
The green lane is the school-boy's friend. 
Low leaves his quarrel apprehend, 
The fresh ground loves his top and ball, 
The air rings jocund to his call. 
The brimming brook invites a leap. 
He dives the hollow, climbs the steep. 

The caged linnet in the spring 
Hearkens for the choral glee. 
When his fellows on the wing 
Migrate from the Southern Sea; 
When trellised grapes their flowers unmaskj 
And the new-born tendrils twine. 
The old wine darkling in the cask 
Feels the bloom on the living vine. 
And bursts the hoops at hint of spring: 
And so, perchance, in Adam's race, 
Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace 
Survived the Flight and swam the Floodj 
And wakes the wish in youngest blood 
To tread the forfeit Paradise, 
And feed once more the exile's eyes; 
And ever when the happy child 
In May beholds the blooming wild, 

VOL. IX. 10 



146 MAY-DAY. 

And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, 
"Onward," he cries, "your baskets bring, — 
In the next field is air more mild, 
And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier 
spring." 

Not for a regiment's parade, 
Nor evil laws or rulers made, 
Blue Walden rolls its cannonade, 
But for a lofty sign 
Which the Zodiac threw. 
That the bondage-days are told, 
And waters free as winds shall flow. 
Lo ! how aU the tribes combine 
To rout the flying foe. 
See, every patriot oak-leaf throws 
His elfin length upon the snows, 
Not idle, since the leaf all day 
Draws to the spot the solar ray. 
Ere sunset quarrying inches down. 
And half-way to the mosses brown-, 
While the grass beneath the rime 
Has hints of the propitious time. 
And upward pries and perforates 
Through the cold slab a thousand gates. 
Till green lances peering through 
Bend happy in the welkin blue. 

As we thaw frozen flesh with snow, 
So Spring will not her time forerun. 
Mix polar night with tropic glow. 
Nor cloy us with unshaded sun. 
Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance. 
But she has the temperance 



MAY-DAY. 147 

Of the gods, whereof she is one, — 

Masks her treasury of heat 

Under east-winds crossed with sleet. 

Plants and birds and humble creatures 

Well accept her rule austere ; 

Titan-born, to hardy natures 

Cold is genial and dear. 

As Southern wrath to Northern right 

Is but straw to anthracite ; 

As in the day of sacrifice, 

When heroes piled the pyre, 

The dismal Massachusetts ice 

Burned more than others' fire. 

So Spring guards with surface cold 

The garnered heat of ages old. 

Hers to sow the seed of bread, 

That man and all the kinds be fed ; 

And, when the sunlight fills the hours, 

Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers. 

Beneath the calm, within the light, 
A hid unruly appetite 
Of swifter life, a surer hope, 
Strains every sense to larger scope, 
Impatient to anticipate 
The halting steps of aged Fate. 
Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl: 
When Nature falters, fain would zeal 
Grasp the felloes of her wheel. 
And grasping give the orbs another whirl. 
Turn swiftlier round, tardy ball! 
And sun this frozen side. 
Bring hither back the robin's call, 
Bring back the tulip's pride. 



148 MAY-DAY. 

Why chidest thou the tardy Spring? 
The hardy bunting does not chide ; 
The blackbirds make the maples ring 
With social cheer and jubilee ; 
The redwing flutes his o-Jca-lee, 
The robins know the melting snow; 
The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, 
Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves. 
Secure the osier yet will hide 
Her callow brood in mantling leaves, — • 
And thou, by science all undone. 
Why only must thy reason fail 
To see the southing of the sun? 

The world rolls round, — mistrust it not, 
Befalls again what once befell; 
All things return, both sphere and mote. 
And I shall hear my bluebird's note, 
And dream the dream of Auburn dell. 

April cold with dropping rain 
Willows and lilacs brings again. 
The whistle of returning birds. 
And trumpet-lowing of the herds. 
The scarlet maple-keys betray 
What potent blood hath modest May, 
What fiery force the earth renews, 
The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; 
What joy in rosy waves outpoured 
Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord. 

Hither rolls the storm of heat ; 
I feel its finer billows beat 



MAY-DAY. 149 

Like a sea wliich me infolds ; 

Heat with viewless fingers moulds, 

Swells, and mellows, and matures, 

Paints, and flavors, and allures, 

Bird and brier inly warms. 

Still enriches and transforms, 

Gives the reed and lily length, 

Adds to oak and oxen strength, 

Transforming what it doth infold, 

Life out of death, new out of old, 

Painting fawns' and leopards' fells, 

Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells, 

Fires gardens with a joyful blaze 

Of tulips, in the morning's rays. 

The dead log touched bursts into leaf, 

The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf. 

"What god is this imperial Heat, 

Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat? 

Doth it bear hidden in its heart 

"Water-line patterns of all art ? 

Is it Daedalus ? is it Love ? 

Or walks in mask almighty Jove, 

And drops from Power's redundant horD 

All seeds of beauty to be born? 

Where shall we keep the holiday. 
And duly greet the entering May? 
Too strait and low our cottage doors. 
And all unmeet our carpet floors; 
Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall, 
Suffice to hold the festival 
TTp and away! where haughty woods 
Front the liberated floods: 



150 MAY-DAY. 

We will climb the broad-backed hills, 
Hear the uproar of their joy ; 
. We will mark the leaps and gleams 
Of the new-delivered streams, 
And the murmuring rivers of sap 
Mount in the pipes of the trees, 
Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, 
Which for a spike of tender green 
Bartered its powdery cap; 
And the colors of joy in the bird, 
And the love in its carol heard. 
Frog and lizard in holiday coats, 
And turtle brave in his golden spots; 
While cheerful cries of crag and plain 
Reply to the thunder of river and main. 

As poured the flood of the ancient sea 
Spilling over mountain chains. 
Bending forests as bends the sedge. 
Faster flowing o'er the plains, — 
A world-wide wave with a fpaming edga 
That rims the running silver sheet, — 
So pours the deluge of the heat 
Broad northward o'er the land. 
Painting artless paradises, 
Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, 
Fanning secret fires which glow 
In columbine and clover-blow, 
Climbing the northern zones, 
Where a thousand pallid towns 
Lie like cockles by the main. 
Or tented armies on a plain. 
The million-handed sculptor moulds 
Quaintest bud and blossom folds, 



MAY-DAY. 151 

The million-handed painter pours 
Opal hues and purple dye ; 
Azaleas flush the island floors, 
And the tints of heaven reply. 

"Wreaths for the May ! for happy Spring 
To-day shall all her dowry bring, 
The love of kind, the joy, the grace. 
Hymen of element and race. 
Knowing well to celebrate 
With song and hue and star and state, 
With tender light and youthful cheer, 
The spousals of the new-born year. 

Spring is strong and virtuous, 
Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, 
Quickening underneath the mould 
Grains beyond the price of gold. 
So deep and large her bounties are, 
That one broad, long midsummer daj 
Shall to the planet overpay 
The ravage of a year of war. 

Drug the cup, thou butler sweet, 
And send the nectar round ; 
The feet that slid so long on sleet 
Are glad to feel the ground. 
Fill and saturate each kind 
With good according to its mind, 
Fill each kind and saturate 
With good agreeing with its fate, 
And soft perfection of its plan — 
Willow and violet, maiden and man. 



152 MAY-DAY. 

The bitter-sweet, the haunting air 
Creepeth, bloweth everywhere ; 
It preys on all, all prey on it, 
Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit, 
Stings the strong with enterprise, 
Makes travellers long for Indian skies, 
And where it comes this courier fleet 
Fans in all hearts expectance sweet, 
As if to-morrow should redeem 
The vanished rose of evening's dream. 
By houses lies a fresher green. 
On men and maids a ruddier mien, ^ 
As if time brought a new relay 
Of shining virgins every May, 
And Summer came to ripen maids 
To a beauty that not fades. 

I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, 
Stepping daily onward north 
To greet staid ancient cavaliers 
Filing single in stately train. 
And who, and who are the travellers? 
They were Night and Day, and Day and Nighty 
Pilgrims wight with step forthright. 
I saw the Days deformed and low. 
Short and bent by cold and snow; 
The merry Spring threw wreaths on them, 
Flower-wreaths gay with bud and bell ; 
Many a flower and many a gem, 
They were refreshed by the smell, 
They shook the snow from hats and shoon, 
They put their April raiment on; 
And those eternal forms, 
Unhurt by a thousand storms. 



MAY-DAY. 153 

Shot up to the height of the sky again, 
And danced as merrily as young men. 
I saw them mask their awful glance 
Sidewise meek in gossamer lids ; 
And to speak my thought if none forbids 
It was as if the eternal gods, 
Tired of their starry periods. 
Hid their majesty in cloth 
Woven of tulips and painted moth. 
On carpets green the maskers march 
Below May's well-appointed arch, 
Each star, each god, each grace amain, 
Every joy and virtue speed. 
Marching duly in her train, 
And fainting Nature at her need 
Is made whole again. 

'T was the vintage-day of field and wood. 
When magic wine for bards is brewed ; 
Every tree and stem and chink 
Gushed with syrup to the brink. 
The air stole into the streets of towns, 
Refreshed the wise, reformed the clowns, 
And betrayed the fund of joy 
To the high-school and medalled boy: 
On from hall to chamber ran, 
From youth to maid, from boy to man, 
To babes, and to old eyes as well. 
*Once more,' the old man cried, *ye clouds. 
Airy turrets purple-piled, 
Which once my infancy beguiled, 
Beguile me with the wonted spell. 
I know ye skillful to convoy 
The total freight of hope and joy 



154 MAY-DAY. 

Into rude and homely nooks, 

Shed mocking lustres on shelf of books, 

On farmer's byre, on pasture rude, 

And stony pathway to the wood. 

I care not if the pomps you show 

Be what they soothfast appear, 

Or if yon realms in sunset glow 

Be bubbles of the atmosphere. 

And if it be to you allowed 

To fool me with a shining cloud, 

So only new griefs are consoled 

By new delights, as old by old, 

Frankly I will be your guest. 

Count your change and cheer the besto 

The world hath overmuch of pain, — 

If Nature give me joy again. 

Of such deceit 1 11 not complain.' 

Ah ! well I mind the calendar, 
Faithful through a thousand years, 
Of the painted race of flowers, 
Exact to days, exact to hours, 
Counted on the spacious dial 
Yon broidered zodiac girds. 
I know the trusty almanac 
Of the punctual coming-back. 
On their due days, of the birds. 
I marked them yestermorn, 
A flock of finches darting 
Beneath the crystal arch. 
Piping, as they flew, a march, — 
Belike the one they used in parting 
tiast year from yon oak or larch ; 



3fAY-DAY. 155 

Dusky sparrows in a crowd, 

Diving, darting northward free, 

Suddenly betook them all, 

Every one to his hole in the wall, 

Or to his niche in the apple-tree. 

I greet with joy the choral trains 

Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes. 

Best gems of Nature's cabinet, 

With dews of tropic morning wet, 

Beloved of children, bards and Sj)ring, 

O birds, your perfect virtues bring. 

Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight, 

Your manners for the heart's delight, 

Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof. 

Here weave your chamber weather-proof, 

Forgive our harms, and condescend 

To man, as to a lubber friend. 

And, generous, teach his awkward race 

Courage and probity and grace ! 

Poets praise that hidden wine 
Hid in milk we drew 
At the barrier of Time, 
When our life was new. 
We had eaten fairy fruit, 
We were quick from head to foot, 
All the forms we looked on shone 
As with diamond dews thereon. 
What cared we for costly joys, 
The Museum's far-fetched toys ? 
Gleam of sunshine on the wall 
Poured a deeper cheer than all 
The revels of the Carnival. 



156 3IAY-DAY. 

We a pIne-gi*ove did prefer 

To a marble theatre, 

Could with gods on mallows dine, 

Nor cared for spices or for wine. 

Wreaths of mist and rainbow spanned. 

Arch on arch, the grimmest land ; 

Whistle of a woodland bird 

Made the pulses dance, 

Note of horn in valleys heard 

Filled the region with romance. 

None can tell how sweet, 
How virtuous, the morning air ; 
Every accent vibrates well ; 
Not alone the wood-bird's call, 
Or shouting boys that chase their ball, 
Pass the height of minstrel skill. 
But the ploughman's thoughtless cry, 
Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat. 
And the joiner's hammer-beat, 
Softened are above their will, 
Take tones from groves they wandered through 
Or flutes which passing angels blew. 
All grating discords melt, 
No dissonant note is dealt. 
And though thy voice be shrill 
Like rasping file on steel. 
Such is the temper of the air. 
Echo waits with art and care, 
And will the faults of song repair. 

So by remote Superior Lake, 
And by resounding Mackinac, 



MAY-DAY. 167 

When northern storms the forest shake, 

And billows on the long beach break, 

The artful Air will separate 

Note by note all sounds that grate. 

Smothering in her ample breast 

All but godlike words. 

Reporting to the happy ear 

Only purified accords. 

Strangely wrought from barking waves^. 

Soft music daunts the Indian braves, — 

Convent-chanting which the child 

Hears pealing from the panther's cave 

And the impenetrable wild. 

Soft on the south-wind sleeps the haze : 
So on thy broad mystic van 
Lie the opal- colored days, 
And waft the miracle to man. 
Soothsayer of the eldest gods, 
Repairer of what harms betide, 
Revealer of the inmost powers 
Prometheus proffered, Jove denied ; 
Disclosing treasures more than true, 
Or in what far to-morrow due ; 
Speaking by the tongues of flowers, 
By the ten-tongued laurel speaking, 
Singing by the oriole songs. 
Heart of bird the man's heart seeking | 
Whispering hints of treasure hid 
Under Morn's unlifted lid. 
Islands looming just beyond 
The dim horizon's utmost bound; — 
Who can, like thee, our rags upbraid, 



158 MAY-DAY. 

Or taunt us with our hope decayed? 

Or who like thee persuade, 

Making the splendor of the air, 

The morn and sparkling dew, a snare ? 

Or who resent 

Thy genius, wiles and blandishment? 

There is no orator prevails 
To beckon or persuade 
Like thee the youth or maid: 
Thy birds, thy songs, thy brooks, thy gales, 
Thy blooms, thy kinds. 
Thy echoes in the wilderness. 
Soothe pain, and age, and love's distress, 
Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds. 

For thou, O Spring! canst renovate 
All that high God did first create. 
Be still his arm and architect. 
Rebuild the ruin, mend defect ; 
Chemist to vamp old worlds with new, 
Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue, 
New tint the plumage of the birds. 
And slough decay from grazing herds, 
Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, 
Cleanse the torrent at the fountain. 
Purge alpine air by towns defiled. 
Bring to fair mother fairer child, 
Not less renew the heart and brain. 
Scatter the sloth, wash out the stain, 
Make the aged eye sun-clear. 
To parting soul bring grandeur near. 
Under gentle types, my Spring 
Masks the might of Nature's king, 



THE ADIRONDACS. 159 

An energy that searches thorough 

From Chaos to the dawning morrow; 

into all our human plight, 

The soul's pilgrimage and flight; 

In city or in solitude, 

Step by step, lifts bad to good, 

Without halting, without rest, 

Lifting Better up to Best; 

Planting seeds of knowledge pure, 

Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure. 



THE ADIRONDACS, 

A JOUKNAL. 

DEDICATED TO MY rEM-OW-TEAVELLEES IN AUGUST, 1858. 

Wise and polite, — and if I drew 
Their several portraits, you would own 
Chaucer had no such worthy crew, 
ISTor Boccace in Decameron. 

We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends. 

Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks 

Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach 

The Adirondac lakes. At Martin's Beach 

We chose our boats; each man a boat and guide, — 

Ten men, ten guides, our company all told» 

Next morn, we swept with oars the Saranac, 
With skies of benediction, to Round Lake, 
Where all the sacred mountains drew around us, 
Tahawus, Seaward, Maclntyrej Baldhead, 



160 THE ADIRONDACS. 

And other Titans without muse or name. 
Pleased with these grand companions, we glide on, 
Instead of flowers, crowned with a wreath of hills. 
We made our distance wider, boat from boat. 
As each would hear the oracle alone. 
By the bright morn the gay flotilla slid 
Through files of flags that gleamed like bayonets, 
Through gold-moth-haunted beds of pickerel-flower, 
Through scented banks of lilies white and gold, 
"Where the deer feeds at night, the teal by day, 
On through the Upper Saranac, and up 
Pere Raquette stream, to a small tortuous pass 
Winding through grassy shallows in and out. 
Two creeping miles of rushesj pads and sponge. 
To FoUansbee Water and the Lake of Loons. 

Northward the length of FoUansbee we rowed, 
Under low mountains, whose unbroken ridge 
Ponderous with beechen forest sloped the shore. 
A pause and council : then, where near the head 
Due east a bay makes inward to the land 
Between two rocky arms, we climb the bank, 
And in the twilight of the forest noon 
Wield the first axe these echoes ever heard. 
We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts, 
Barked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof. 
Then struck a light and kindled the camp-fire. 

The wood was sovran with centennial trees, — 
Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir, 
Linden and spruce. In strict society 
Three conifers, white, pitch and Norway pine, 
Five-leaved, three-leaved and two-leaved, grew thereby. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 161 

Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth, 
The maple eight, beneath its shapely towero 

* Welcome ! ' the wood-god murmured through the 
leaves, — 
* "Welcome, though late, unknowing, yet known to me.' 
Evening drew on ; stars peeped through maple-boughs^ 
Which o'erhung, like a cloud, our camping fire. 
Decayed millennial trunks, like moonlight flecks, 
Lit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor. 

Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft 
In well-hung chambers daintily bestowed. 
Lie here on hemlock-boughs, like Sacs and Sioux, 
And greet unanimous the joyful change. 
So fast will Nature acclimate her sons, 
Though late returning to her pristine ways. 
Off soundings, seamen do not suffer cold ; 
And, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned, 
Sleep on the fragrant brush, as on down-beds. 
Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air 
That circled freshly in their forest dress 
Made them to boys again. Happier that they 
Slipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind, 
At the first mounting of the giant stairs. 
No placard on these rocks warned to the polls, 
No door-bell heralded a visitor, 
No courier v/aits, no letter came or went, 
Nothing was ploughed, or reaped, or bought, or soldi 
The frost might glitter, it would blight no crop, 
The falling rain will spoil no holiday. 
We were made freemen of the forest laws, 

VOL. IX. 11 



162 THE ADIRONDACS. 

All dressed, like Nature, fit for her own ends, 
Essaying nothing she cannot perform. 

In Adirondac lakes, 
At morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded; 
Shoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make 
His brief toilette: at night, or in the rain, 
He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn: 
A paddle in the right hand, or an oar, 
And in the left, a gun, his needful arms. 
By turns we praised the stature of our guides, 
Their rival strength and suppleness, their skill 
To row, to swim, to shoot, to build a camp, 
To climb a lofty stem, clean without boughs 
Full fifty feet, and bring the eaglet down: 
Temper to face wolf, bear, or catamount, 
And wit to trap or take him in his lair. 
Sound, ruddy men, frolic and innocent. 
In winter, lumberers ; in summer, guides ; 
Their sinewy arms pull at the oar untired 
Three times ten thousand strokes, from morn to eve, 

Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen ! 
No city airs or arts pass current here. 
Your rank is all reversed ; let men of cloth 
Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls : 
They are the doctors of the wilderness. 
And we the low-prized laymen. 
In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test 
Which few can put on with impunity. 
What make you, master, fumbling at the oar? 
Will you catch crabs ? Truth tries pretension here. 
The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb; 



THE ADIRONDACS. 163 

The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks 
He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes, 
Tell the sun's time, determine the true north. 
Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods 
To thread by night the nearest way to camp? 

Ask you, how went the hours? 
All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, 
North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay, 
"Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer^ 
Or whipping its rough surface for a trout; 
Or, bathers, diving from the rock at noon; 
Challenging Echo by our guns and cries; 
Or listening to the laughter of the loon ; 
Or, in the evening twilight's latest red, 
Beholding the procession of the pines ; 
Or, later yet, beneath a lighted jack. 
In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter 
Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds 
Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist. 
Hark to that muffled roar ! a tree in the woods 
Is fallen : but hush ! it has not scared the buck 
Who stands astonished at the meteoT light, 
Then turns to bound away, — is it too late ? 

Our heroes tried their rifles at a mark, 
Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five ; 
Sometimes their wits at sally and retort, 
With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle; 
Or parties scaled the near acclivities 
Competing seekers of a rumored lake, 
Whose unauthenticated waves we named 
Lake Probability, — our carbuncle, 
Long sought, not found. 



164 THE ADIRONDACS. 

Two Doctors in the camp 
Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain, 
Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew, 
Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow and moth; 
Insatiate skiU in water or in air 
Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss; 
The while, one leaden pot of alcohol 
Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds. 
Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants, 
Orchis and gentian, fern and long whip-scirpus. 
Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride, 
Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge and moss, 
Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls. 
Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed. 
The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker 
Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp. 
As water poured through hollows of the hills 
To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets, 
So Nature shed all beauty lavishly 
From her redundant horn. 

Lords of this realm, 
Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day 
Rounded by hours where each outdid the last 
In miracles of pomp, we must be proud, 
As if associates of the sylvan gods. 
We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac. 
So pure the Alpine element we breathed, 
So light, so lofty pictures came and went. 
We trode on air, contemned the distant town, 
Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned 
That we should build, hard-by, a spacious lodge, 
And how we should come hither with our sons, 
Hereafter, — willing they, and more adroit. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 165 

Hard fare, hard bed and comic misery, — 
The midge, the blue-fly and the mosquito 
Painted our necks, hands, ankles, with red bands : 
But, on the second day, we heed them not, 
Nay, we saluted them Auxiliaries, 
Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names. 
For who defends our leafy tabernacle 
From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd, — 
Who but the midge, mosquito and the fly, 
Which past endurance sting the tender cit, 
But which we learn to scatter with a smudge, 
Or baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn ? 

Our foaming ale we drank from hunters' pans, 
Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave 
Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread ; 
All ate like abbots, and, if any missed 
!rheir wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss 
With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth. 
And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodorep 
Crusoe, Crusader, Pius JEneas, said aloud, 
" Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating 
Food indigestible " : — then murmured some, 
Others applauded him who spoke the truth. 

Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought 
Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday 
'Mid all the hints and glories of the home. 
For who can tell what sudden privacies 
Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry 
Of scholars furloughed from their tasks and let 
Into this Oreads' fended Paradise, 
As chapels in the city's thoroughfares. 



166 THE ADIRONDACS. 

Whither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow 

And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest. 

Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke 

To each apart, lifting her lovely shows 

To spiritual lessons pointed home, 

And as through dreams in watches of the night, 

So through all creatures in their form and ways 

Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant, 

Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense 

Inviting to new knowledge, one with old. 

Hark to that petulant chirp! what ails the warbler? 

Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye. 

Now soar again. What wilt thou, restless bird, 

Seeking in that chaste blue a bluer light. 

Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky ? 

And presently the sky is changed; O world! 
What pictures and what harmonies are thine ! 
The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, 
Bo like the soul of me, what if 't were me ? 
A melancholy better than all mirth. 
Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect, 
Or at the foresight of obscurer years ? 
Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory. 
Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty 
Superior to all its gaudy skirts. 
And, that no day of life may lack romance, 
The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down 
A private beam into each several heart. 
Daily the bending skies solicit man. 
The seasons chariot him from this exile. 
The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair, 
The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, 



THE ADIRONDACS. 167 

Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights 
Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home. 



With a vermilion pencil mark the day 
When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs 
Entering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls 
Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront 
Two of our mates returning with swift oars. 
One held a printed journal waving high 
Caught from a late-arriving traveller, 
Big with great news, and shouted the report 
For which the world had waited, now firm fact, 
Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea, 
And landed on our coast, and pulsating 
With ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries 
From boat to boat, and to the echoes round. 
Greet the glad miracle. Thought's new-found path 
Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways, 
Match God's equator with a zone of art, 
And lift man's public action to a height 
Worthy the enormous cloud of witnesses, 
When linked hemispheres attest his deed. 
We have few moments in the longest life 
Of such delight and wonder as there grew,— 
Nor yet unsuited to that solitude : 
A burst of joy, as if we told the fact 
To ears intelligent; as if gray rock 
And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know 
This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind ; 
As if we men were talking in a vein 
Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs. 
And a prime end of the most subtle element 
W'^re fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves/ 



168 THE ADIRONDACS. 

Bend nearer, faint day-moon ! Yon thundertops, 
Let them liear well! 'tis theirs as much as ours. 



A spasm throbbing through the pedestals 
Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent, 
Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill 
To be a brain, or serve the brain of man. 
The lightning has run masterless too long; 
He must to school and learn his verb and noun 
And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage, 
Spelling with guided tongue man's messages 
Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea. 
And yet I marked, even in the manly joy 
Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat 
(Perchance I erred), a shade of discontent; 
Or was it for mankind a generous shame. 
As of a luck not quite legitimate, 
Since fortune snatched from wit the lion's part? 
Was it a college pique of town and gown, 
As one within whose memory it burned 
That not academicians, but some lout, 
Found ten years since the Californian gold ? 
And now, again, a hungry company 
Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade, 
Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools 
Of science, not from the philosophers, 
Had won the brightest laurel of all time. 
T was always thus, and will be ; hand and head 
Are ever rivals: but, though this be swift, 
The other slow, — this the Prometheus, 
And that the Jove, — yet, howsoever hid, 
It was from Jove the other stole his fire. 
And, without Jove, the good had never beeno 



THE ADIRONDACS. 169 

It is not Iroquois or cannibals, 

But ever the free race with front sublime, 

And these instructed by their wisest too, 

Who do the feat, and lift humanity. 

Let not him mourn who best entitled was, 

Nay, mourn not one : let him exult, 

Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant, 

And water it with wine, nor watch askance 

Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit: 

Enough that mankind eat and are refreshed. 

We flee away from cities, but we bring 
The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers. 
Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts. 
We praise the guide, we praise the forest life,: 
But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore 
Of books and arts and trained experiment. 
Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz ? 
O no, not we ! Witness the shout that shook 
Wild Tupper Lake ; witness the mute all-hail 
The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge 
Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears 
From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes 
On the piano, played with master's hand. 
' Well done ! ' he cries ; ' the bear is kept at bay, 
The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire; 
All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold, 
This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-waU, 
This wild plantation will suffice to chase. 
Now speed the gay celerities of art, 
What in the desert was impossible 
Within four walls is possible again, — 
Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill. 



170 BRAHMA. 

Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife 
Of keen competing youths, joined or alone 
To outdo each other and extort applause. 
Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep. 
Twirl the old wheels ! Time takes fresh start again. 
On for a thousand years of genius more.' 

The holidays were fruitful, but must end; 
One August evening had a cooler breath ; 
Into each mind intruding duties crept ; 
Under the cinders burned the fires of home; 
Nay, letters found us in our paradise: 
So in the gladness of the new event 
We struck our camp and left the happy hiUs. 
The fortunate star that rose on us sank not; 
The prodigal sunshine rested on the land, 
The rivers gambolled onward to the sea. 
And Nature, the inscrutable and mute. 
Permitted on her infinite repose 
Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons. 
As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessedo 



BRAHMA. 

If the red slayer think he slays. 
Or if the slain think he is slain. 

They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again. 

Far or forgot to me is near; 

Shadow and sunlight are the same; 



FATE, 171 

The vanished gods to me appear; 

And one to me are shame and fame. 

They reckon ill who leave me out; 

When me they fly, I am the wings 5 
I am the doubter and the doubt, 

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. 

The strong gods pine for my abode, 
And pine in vain the sacred Seven; 

But thou, meek lover of the good ! 

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. 



FATE. 

Deep in the man sits fast his fate 

To mould his fortunes mean or great*. 

Unknown to Cromwell as to me 

Was Cromwell's measure or degree; 

Unknown to him as to his horse, 

If he than his groom be better or worse. 

He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs, 

With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares, 

Till late he learned, through doubt and fear, 

Broad England harbored not his peer: 

Obeying Time, the last to own 

The Genius from its cloudy throne. 

For the prevision is allied 

Unto the thing so signified ; 

Or say, the foresight that awaits 

Is the same Genius that creates. 



172 FREEDOM, 



FREEDOM. 



Once I wished I might rehearse 
Freedom's paean in my verse, 
That the slave who caught the strain 
Should throb until he snapped his chain* 
But the Spirit said, ' Not so ; 
Speak it not, or speak it low; 
Name not lightly to be said, 
Gift too precious to be prayed, 
Passion not to be expressed 
But by heaving of the breast: 
Yet, — wouldst thou the mountain find 
"Where this deity is shrined. 
Who gives to seas and sunset skies 
Their unspent beauty of surprise, 
And, when it lists him, waken can 
Brute or savage into man ; 
Or, if in thy heart he shine. 
Blends the starry fates with thine, 
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee, 
And makes thy thoughts archangels be 5 
^Freedom's secret wilt thou know? — 
Counsel not with flesh and blood; 
Loiter not for cloak or food; 
Right thou feelest, rush to do.' % 



ODE. 173 

ODE. 

SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, \857. 

O TENDERLY the haughty day 

Fills his blue urn with fire ; 
One morn is in the mighty heaven, 

And one in our desire. 

.The cannon booms from town to town, 

Our pulses beat not less, 
The joy-bells chime their tidings down, 
Which children's voices bless. 

For He that flung the broad blue fold 

O'er-mantling land and sea, 
One third part of the sky unrolled 

For the banner of the free. 

The men are ripe of Saxon kind 

To build an equal state, — 
To take the statute from the mind 

And make of duty fate. 

United States ! the ages plead, — 
Present and Past in under-song, — 

Go put your creed into your deed, 
Nor speak with double tongue. 

For sea and land don't understand. 

Nor skies without a frown 
See rights for which the one hand fights 

By the other cloven down. 



174 BOSTON HYMN. 

Be just at home ; then write your scroll 

Of honor o'er the sea, 
And bid the broad Atlantic roll, 

A ferry of the free. 

And henceforth there shall be no chain, 

Save underneath the sea 
The wires shall murmur through the main 

Sweet songs of liberty. 

The conscious stars accord above, 

The waters wild below, 
And under, through the cable wove, 

Her fiery errands go. 

For He that worketh high and wise, 

Nor pauses in his plan, 
Will take the sun out of the skies 

Ere freedom out of man. 



BOSTON HYMN. 

BEAD IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863b 

The word of the Lord by night 
To the watching Pilgrims came, 
As they sat by the seaside, 
And filled their hearts with flame. 

God said, I am tired of kings, 
I suffer them no more ; 
Up to my ear the morning brings 
The outrage of the poor. 



BOSTON HYMN. 175 

Think ye I made this ball 

A field of havoc and war, 

Where tyrants great and tyrants small 

Might harry the weak and poor? 

My angel, — his name is Freedom,— 
Choose him to be your king ; 
He shall cut pathways east and west 
And fend you with his wing, 

Lo ! I uncover the land 
Which I hid of old time in the West, 
As the sculptor uncovers the statue 
When he has wrought his best; 

I show Columbia, of the rocks 
Which dip their foot in the seas 
And soar to the air-borne flocks 
Of clouds and the boreal fleece. 

I will divide my goods ; 
Call in the wretch and slave: 
None shall rule but the humble, 
And none but Toil shall have. 

I will have never a noble, 

No lineage counted great; 

Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 

Shall constitute a state. 

Go, cut down trees in the forest 
And trim the straightest boughs ; 
Cut down trees in the forest 
And build me a wooden house. 



1T6 BOSTON HYMN. 

Call the people together, 
The young men and the sires, 
The digger in the harvest field, 
Hireling and him that hires ; 

And here in a pine state-house 
They shall choose men to rule 
In every needful faculty, 
In church and state and school. 

Lo, now ! if these poor men 
Can govern the land and sea 
And make just lavrs below the sun, 
As planets faithful be. 

And ye shall succor men ; 

'T is nobleness to serve ; 

Help them who cannot help again : 

Beware from right to swerve. 

I break your bonds and masterships, 
And I unchain the slave : 
Free be his heart and hand henceforth 
As wind and wandering wave. 

I cause from every creature 
His proper good to flow : 
As much as he is and doeth, 
So much he shall bestow. 

But, laying hands on another 
To coin his labor and sweat. 
He goes in pawn to his victim 
For eternal years in debt. 



BOSTON HYMN. 177 

To-day unbind the captive, 

So only are ye unbound ; 

Lift up a people from the dust, 

Trump of their rescue, sound! ^- 

Pay ransom to the owner 

And fill the bag to the brim. 

Who is the owner ? The slave is owners 

And ever was. Pay him. 

O North ! give him beauty for rags. 
And honor, O South ! for his shame ; 
Nevada ! coin thy golden crags 
With Freedom's image and name. 

Up! and the dusky race 
That sat in darkness long, — 
Be swift their feet as antelopes, 
And as behemoth strong. 

Come, East and West and Norths 
By races, as snow-flakes. 
And carry my purpose forth, 
Which neither halts nor shakes. > 

My will fulfilled shall be, 
For, in daylight or in dark, 
My thunderbolt has eyes to see 
His way home to the mark. 

VOL. IX. 12 



178 VOLUNTARIES. 



VOLUNTARIES. 



Low and mournful be the strain, 
Haughty thought be far from me | 
Tones of penitence and pain, 
Moanings of the tropic sea ; 
Low and tender in the cell 
Where a captive sits in chains, 
Crooning ditties treasured well 
From his Afric's torrid plains. 
Sole estate his sire bequeathed, — 
Hapless sire to hapless son, — 
Was the wailing song he breathed. 
And his chain when life was done. 

What his fault, or what his crime? 
Or what ill planet crossed his prime? 
Heart too soft and will too weak 
To front the fate that crouches near, — • 
Dove beneath the vulture's beak ; — 
Will song dissuade the thirsty spear ? 
Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, 
Displaced, disfurnished here, 
His wistful toil to do his best 
Chilled by a ribald jeer. 
Great men in the Senate sate. 
Sage and hero, side by side. 
Building for their sons the State, 
Which they shall rule with pride. 
They forbore to break the chain 



V 



VOLUNTARIES. 179 

Which hound the dusky trihe, 
Checked hy the owners' fierce disdain, 
Lured by " Union " as the bribe. 
Destiny sat by, and said, 
*Pang for pang your seed shall pay, 
Hide in false peace your coward head, 
I bring round the harvest day.' 

II. 

Freedom all winged expands, 

Nor perches in a narrow place ; 

Her broad van seeks unplanted lands; 

She loves a poor and virtuous race. 

Clinging to a colder zone 

Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, 

The snow-flake is her banner's star, 

Her stripes the boreal streamers are. ^ 

Long she loved the Northman well; 

Now the iron age is done, 

She will not refuse to dwell 

With the offspring of the Sun; 

Foundling of the desert far. 

Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, 

He roves unhurt the burning ways 

In climates of the summer star. 

He has avenues to God 

Hid from men of Northern brain, 

Far beholding, without cloud, 

What these with slowest steps attain. 

If once the generous chief arrive 

To lead him willing to be led, 

For freedom he will strike and strive, 

And drain his heart till he be dead. 



180 VOLUNTARIES, 

III. 

In an age of fops and toys, 

Wanting wisdom, void of right, 

Who shall nerve heroic boys 

To hazard all in Freedom's fight,— 

Break sharply off their jolly games, 

Forsake their comrades gay 

And quit proud homes and youthful dames 

For famine, toil and fray? 

Yet on the nimble air benign 

Speed nimbler messages. 

That waft the breath of grace divine 

To hearts in sloth and ease. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 

When Duty whispers low. Thou must^ 

The youth repHes, lean. 

IV. 

O, WELL for the fortunate soul 

Which Music's wings infold, 

Stealing away the memory 

Of sorrows new and old! 

Yet happier he whose inward sight, 

Stayed on his subtile thought. 

Shuts his sense on toys of time, 

To vacant bosoms brought. 

But best befriended of the God 

He who, in evil times, 

Warned by an inward voice. 

Heeds not the darkness and the dread. 

Biding by his rule and choice, 

Feeling only the fiery thread 



VOLUNTARIES. 181 

Leading over heroic ground, 
Walled with mortal terror round, 
To the aim which him allures, 
And the sweet heaven his deed secures. 
Peril around, all else appalling, 
Cannon in front and leaden rain 
Him duty through the clarion calling 
To the van called not in vain. 

Stainless soldier on the walls, 
Knowing this, — and knows no more, — 
Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
^Justice conquers evermore. 
Justice after as before, — 
And he who battles on her side, 
God, though he were ten times slain, 
Crowns him victor glorified, 
Victor over death and pain. 

V. 

Blooms the laurel which belongs 

To the valiant chief who fights; 

I see the wreath, I hear the songs 

Lauding the Eternal Rights, 

Victors over daily wrongs : 

Awful victors, they misguide 

Whom they will destroy, 

And their coming triumph hide 

In our downfall, or our joy : 

They reach no term, they never sleep, 

In equal strength through space abide ; 

Though, feigning dxvarfs, they crouch and creep, 

The strong they slay, the swift outstride: 



182 BOSTON, 

Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods, 
And rankly on the castled steep, — 
Speak it firmfy, these are gods, 
AU are ghosts beside. 



BOSTON. 

SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS. 

[Bead in Faneuil Hall, on December 16, 1873 ; the Centennial Anniversary ol 
the Destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbor.] 

The rocky nook with hill-tops three 
Looked eastward from the farms, 

And twice each day the flowing sea 
Took Boston in its arms ; 

The men of yore were stout and poor, 

And sailed for bread to every shore. 

And where they went on trade intent 

They did what freemen can, 
Their dauntless ways did all men praise, 

The merchant was a man. 
The world was made for honest trade^i — 
To plant and eat be none afraid. 

The waves that rocked them on the deep 

To them their secret told; 
Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep, 

" Like us be free and bold ! " 



BOSTON. 183 

The honest waves refused to slaves 
The empire of the ocean caves. 

Old Europe groans with palaces, 

Has lords enough and more ; — 
"We plant and build by foaming seas 

A city of the poor ; — 
For day by day could Boston Bay 
Their honest labor overpay. 

We grant no dukedoms to the few, 
We hold like rights, and shall ; — 

Equal on Sunday in the pew, 
On Monday in the mall, 
ypor what avail the plough or sailj 

Or land or life, if freedom fail? v-' 

The noble craftsman we promote, 

Disown the knave and fool; 
Each honest man shall have his vote. 

Each child shall have his school. 
A union then of honest men. 
Or union never more again. 

The wild rose and the barberry thorn 

Hung out their summer pride, 
Where now on heated pavements worn 

The feet of millions stride. 

Fair rose the planted hills behind 

The good town on the bay. 
And where the western hills declined 

The prairie stretched away. 



184 BOSTON. 

What care though rival cities soar 

, Along the stormy coast, 
Penn's town, New York and Baltimore, 
If Boston knew the most ! 

They laughed to know the world so wide; 

The mountains said, " Good-day ! 
We greet you well, you Saxon men, 

Up with your towns and stay ! " 
The world was made for honest trade, — 
To plant and eat be none afraid. 

" For you," they said, " no barriers be. 
For you no sluggard rest; 
Each street leads downward to the sea, 
Or landward to the west." 

happy town beside the sea. 

Whose roads lead everywhere to all; 

Than thine no deeper moat can be. 
No stouter fence, no steeper wall ! 

Bad news from George on the English throne | 
" You are thriving well," said he ; 
*'Now by these presents be it known 
You shall pay us a tax on tea; 
'T is very small, — no load at all, — 
Honor enough that we send the call." 

^'Not so," said Boston, "good my lord, 
We pay your governors here 
Abundant for their bed and board, 
Six thousand pounds a year. 



BOSTON. 185 

(Your Highness knows our homely word,) 
Millions for self-government. 
But for tribute never a cent." 

The cargo came ! and who could blame 

If Indians seized the tea. 
And, chest by chest, let down the same. 

Into the laughing sea ? 
For what avail the plough or sail. 
Or land or life, if freedom fail? 

The townsmen braved the English king, 

Found friendship in the French, 
And honor joined the patriot ring 

Low on their wooden bench. 

O bounteous seas that never fail! 

O day remembered yet ! 
O happy port that spied the sail 

Which wafted Lafayette ! 
Pole-star of light in Europe's night, 
That never faltered from the right. 

Kings shook with fear, old empires crave 

The secret force to find 
Which fired the little State to save 

The rights of all mankind. 

But right is might through all the world; 

Province to province faithful clung, 
Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled, 

Till Freedom cheered and joy-bells rung. 



186 BOSTON. 

The sea returning day by day 

Restores the world-wide mart; 
So let each dweller on the Bay 

Fold Boston in his heart, 
Till these echoes be choked with snows, 
Or over the town blue ocean flows. ' 

Let the blood of her hundred thousands 

Throb in each manly vein ; 
And the wits of all her wisest, 

Make sunshine in her brain. 
For you can teach the lightning speech, 
And round the globe your voices reach. 

And each shall care for other, 

And each to each shall bend, 
To the poor a noble brother. 

To the good an equal friend. 

A blessing through the ages thus 

Shield all thy roofs and towers ! 
God with the fathers, so with us, 

Thou darling town of ours! 

This poem was begun several years before the War, but was not 
finished until the occasion of its delivery in 1873, the anniversary 
festival, when the piece was entirely remodelled. 

Some of the suppressed stanzas are here given. 

The poem began thus : — 

The land that has no song 

Shall have a song to-day: 
The granite ledge is dumb too long, 

The vales have much to say: 
For you can teach the lightning speech, 
And round the glob© your voices reach. 



BOSTON. 187 

After the lines on Lafayette followed these stanzas : — 

O pity that I pause ! 

The song disdaining shuns 
To name the noble sires, because 

Of the unworthy sons : 
For what avail the plough or sail, 
Or land or life, if freedom fail? 

But there was chaff within the flour, 

And one was false in ten. 
And reckless clerks in lust of power 

Forgot the rights of men ; 
Cruel and blind did file their mind. 
And sell the blood of human kind. 

Your town is full of gentle names. 
By patriots once were watchwords made 5 

Those war-cry names are muffled shames 
On recreant sons mislaid. 

What slave shall dare a name to wear 

Once Freedom's passport everywhere? 

O welaway! if this be so, 

And man cannot afford the right, 
And if the wage of love be woe, 

And honest dealing yield despite. 
For what avail or plough or sail, 
Or land or life, if freedom fail? 

Hie to the woods, sleek citizen, 
Back to the sea, go, landsman, down. 

Climb the White Hills, fat alderman, 
And vacant leave the town, 

Ere these echoes be choked with snows. 

Or over the roofs blue Ocean flows. 



188 LETTERS. — RUBIES. 



LETTERS. 

Every day brings a ship, 
Every ship brings a word ; 
Well for those who have no fear, 
Looking seaward well assured 
That the word the vessel brings 
Is the word they wish to hear. 



RUBIES. 

They brought me rubies from the mine, 

And held them to the sun ; 
I said, they are drops of frozen wine 

From Eden's vats that run. 

I looked again, — I thought them hearts 

Of friends to friends unknown; 
Tides that should warm each neighboring life 

Are locked in sparkling stone. 

But fire to thaw that ruddy snow, 

To break enchanted ice, 
And give love's scarlet tides to flow, — 

When shall that sun arise ? 



THE TEST. — SOLUTION. 189 

THE TESTo 

(Musa loquitur.) 

I HUNa my verses in the wind, 

Time and tide their faults may find. 

All were winnowed through and through. 

Five Hues lasted sound and true ; 

Five were smelted in a pot 

Than the South more fierce and hot; 

These the siroc could not melt, 

Fire their fiercer flaming felt, 

And the meaning was more white 

Than July's meridian light. 

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 

Nor time unmake what poets know= 

Have you eyes to find the five 

Which five hundred did survive ? 



SOLUTION. 

I AM the Muse who sung alway 
By Jove, at dawn of the first day. 
Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought 
To fire the stagnant earth with thought : 
On spawning slime my song prevails. 
Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales 5 
Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn, 
Earth smiled with flowers, and man was borno 
Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race. 
And Nile substructs her granite base, — 



190 SOLUTION. 

Tented Tartary, columned Nile, — 
And, under vines, on rocky isle. 
Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak, 
* Forward stepped the perfect Greek: 
That wit and joy might find a tongue^ 
And earth grow civil. Homer sung. 

Flown to Italy from Greece, 
I brooded long and held my peace, 
For I am wont to sing uncalled, 
And in days of evil plight 
Unlock doors of new delight; 
And sometimes mankind I appalled 
With a bitter horoscope, 
With spasms of terror for balm of hopeo 
Then by better thought I lead 
Bards to speak what nations need; 
So I folded me in fears, 
And Dante searched the triple spheres, 
Moulding nature at his will. 
So shaped, so colored, swift or still. 
And, sculptor-like, his large design 
Etched on Alp and Apennine. 

Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, 
Taught by Plinlimmon's Druid power, 
England's genius filled all measure 
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure. 
Gave to the mind its emperor, 
And life was larger than before : 
Nor sequent centuries could hit 
Orbit and sum of Shakspeare's wit. 
The men who lived with him became 
Poets, for the air was fame. 



SOLUTION. 191 

Far in the North, where polar night 
Holds in check the frolic light, 
In trance upborne past mortal goal 
The Swede Emanuel leads the soul. 
Through snows above, mines underground, 
The inks of Erebus he found; 
Rehearsed to men the damned wails 
On which the seraph music sails. 
In spirit-worlds he trod alone. 
But walked the earth unmarked, unknowno 
The near by-stander caught no sound, — 
Yet they who listened far aloof 
Heard rendings of the skyey roof. 
And felt, beneath, the quaking ground ; 
And his air-sown, unheeded words. 
In the next age, are flaming swords. 

In newer days of war and trade, 
Komance forgot, and faith decayed. 
When Science armed and guided war, 
And clerks the Janus-gates unbar. 
When France, where poet never grew, 
Halved and dealt the globe anew, 
Goethe, raised o'er joy and strife, 
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life 
And brought Olympian wisdom down 
To court and mart, to gown and town 
Stooping, his finger wrote in clay 
The open secret of to-day. 

So bloom the unfading petals five. 
And verses that all verse outlive. 



192 HYMN. 



HYMN 

SUNG AT THE SECOND CHURCH, BOSTON, AT THE O'Sf 
DINATION OP REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS. 

We love the venerable house 

Our fathers built to God ; -— 
In heaven are kept their grateful vows, 

Their dust endears the sod. 

Here holy thoughts a light have shed 

From many a radiant face, 
And prayers of humble virtue made 

The perfume of the place. 

And anxious hearts have pondered here 

The mystery of life. 
And prayed the eternal Light to clear 

Their doubts, and aid their strife. 

From humble tenements around 

Came up the pensive train, 
And in the church a blessing found 

That filled their homes again; 

For faith and peace and mighty love 

That from the Godhead flow. 
Showed them the life of Heaven above 

Springs from the life below. 

They live with God ; their homes are dust ; 
Yet here their children pray, 



NATURE, 193 

And in this fleeting lifetime trust 
To find the narrow way. 

\ 

On him who by the altar stands, 

On him thy blessing fall, 
Speak through his lips thy pure commands, 

Thou heart that lovest all. 



NATURE. 



WiNTEES know 

Easily to shed the snow, 

And the untaught Spring is wise 

In cowslips and anemonies. 

Nature, hating art and pains. 

Baulks and baffles plotting brains ; 

Casualty and Surprise 

Are the apples of her eyes ; 

But she dearly loves the poor. 

And, by marvel of her own, 

Strikes the loud pretender down. 

For Nature listens in the rose 

And hearkens in the berry's bell 

To help her friends, to plague her foes, 

And like wise God she judges well. 

Yet doth much her love excel 

To the souls that never fell, 

To swains that live in happiness 

And do well because they please. 

Who walk in ways that are unfamed, 

And feats achieve before they're named. 



194 NATURE. 

NATURE. 

II. 

She is gamesome and good, 

But of mutable mood, — 

No dreary repeater now and again, 

She will be all things to all men. 

She who is old, but nowise feeble, 

Pours her power into the people. 

Merry and manifold without bar, 

Makes and moulds them what they are^ 

And what they call their city way 

Is not their way, but hers, 

And what they say they made to-day, 

They learned of the oaks and firs. 

She spawneth men as mallows fresh, 

Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh ; 

She drugs her water and her wheat 

With the flavors she finds meet. 

And gives them what to drink and eat; 

And having thus their bread and growth. 

They do her bidding, nothing loath. 

"What's most theirs is not their own, 

But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone, 

And in their vaunted works of Art 

The master-stroke is still her part. 



THE ROMANY GIRL. - 195 



THE ROMANY GIRL. 

The sun goes down, and with him takes 
The coarseness of my poor attire ; 
The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame 
Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher. 

Pale Northern girls ! you scorn our race ; 
You captives of your air-tight halls, 
Wear out in-doors your sickly days, 
But leave us the horizon walls. 

And if I take you, dames, to task, 
And say it frankly without guile, 
Then you are Gypsies in a mask, 
And I the lady all the while. 

If on the heath, below the moon, 
I court and play with paler blood. 
Me false to mine dare whisper none, — 
One sallow horseman knows me good. 

Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain, 
For teeth and hair with shopmen deal; 
My swarthy tint is in the grain, 
The rocks and forest know it real. 

The wild air bloweth in our lungs. 
The keen stars twinkle in our eyes. 
The birds gave us our wily tongues, 
The panther in our dances flies. 



196 DAYS, 

You doubt we read the stars on high, 
Nathless we read your fortunes true ; 
The stars may hide in the upper sky, 
But without glass we fathom you. 



DAYS. 

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, 

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 

And marching single in an endless file, 

Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 

To each they offer gifts after his will, 

Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. 

I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, 

Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 

Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 

Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 

Under her solemn fillet saw the scorno 



MY GARDEN. 197 



THE CHARTIST'S COMPLAINT. 

Day ! hast thou two faces, 

Making one place two places? 

One, by humble farmer seen, 

Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, 

Useful only, triste and damp. 

Serving for a laborer's lamp? 

Have the same mists another side, 

To be the appanage of pride, 

Gracing the rich man's wood and lake, 

His park where amber mornings break. 

And treacherously bright to show 

His planted isle where roses glow? 

O Day! and is your mightiness 

A sycophant to smug success ? 

Will the sweet sky and ocean broad 

Be fine accomplices to fraud ? 

Sun ! I curse thy cruel ray : 

Back, back to chaos, harlot Day! 



MY GARDEN. 

If I could put my woods in song 
And tell what 's there enjoyed. 
All men would to my gardens throng, 
And leave the cities void. 

In my plot no tulips blow, — 
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead; 



198 MY GARDEN. 

And rank the savage naaples grow 

From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red. 

My garden is a forest ledge 

"Which older forests bound; 

The hanks slope down to the blue lake-edge, 

Then plunge to depths profound. 

Here once the Deluge ploughed, 
Laid the terraces, one by one; 
Ebbing later whence it flowed, 
They bleach and dry in the sun. 

The sowers made haste to depart, — 
The wind and the birds which sowed it| 
Not for fame, nor by rules of art, 
Planted these, and tempests flowed it. 

Waters that wash my garden side 
Play not in Nature's lawful web. 
They heed not moon or solar tide, — • 
Five years elapse from flood to ebb. 

- Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, 
And every god, — none did refuse ; 
And be sure at last came Love, 
And after Love, the Muse. 

Keen ears can catch a syllable, 

As if one spake to another, 

In the hemlocks tall, untamable, 

And what the whispering grasses smother. 



MY GARDEN. 199 

^olian harps in the pine 
Ring with the song of the Fates; 
Infant Bacchus in the vine, — 
Far distant yet his chorus waits. 

Canst thou copy in verse one chime 
Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, 
Write in a book the morning's prime, 
Or match with words that tender sky? 

Wonderful verse of the gods, 
Of one import, of varied tone; 
They chant the bliss of their abodes 
To man imprisoned in his own. 

Ever the word« of the gods resound ; 
But ihe porches of man's ear 
Seldom in this low life's round 
Are unsealed, that he may hear. 

Wandering voices in the air 
And murmurs in the wold 
Speak what I cannot declare, 
Yet cannot all withhold. 

When the shadow fell on the lake, 
The whirlwind in ripples wrote 
Air-bells of fortune that shme and break. 
And omens above thought. 

But the meanings cleave to the lake, 
Cannot be carried in book or urn ; 
Go thy ways now, com« later back. 
On waves and hedges still they burn. 



200 THE TITMOUSE. 

These the fates of men forecast, 
Of better men than live to-day ; 
If who can read them comes at last 
He will spell in the sculpture, ' Stay/ 



THE TITMOUSE. 

You shall not be overbold 

When you deal with arctic cold, 

As late I found my lukewarm blood 

Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. 

How should I fight? my foeman fine 

Has million arms to one of mine : 

East, west, for aid I looked in vain, 

East, west, north, south, are his domain. 

Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home; 

Must borrow his winds who there would come. 

Up and away for life ! be fleet ! — 

The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, 

Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, 

Curdles the blood to the marble bones. 

Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, 

And hems in life with narrowing fence. 

WeU, in this broad bed lie and sleep, — 

The punctual stars wiU vigil keep, — 

Embalmed by purifying cold ; 

The winds shall sing their dead-march old, 

The snow is no ignoble shroud, 

The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. 



THE TITMOUSE. 201 

Softly, — but this way fate was pointing, 
'T was coming fast to such anointing, 
When piped a tiny voice hard by, 
Gay and poHte, a cheerful cry, 
Chic-chicadeedee ! saucy note 
Out of sound heart and merry throat, 
As if it said, ' Good day, good sir! 
Fine afternoon, old passenger! 
Happy to meet you in these places, 
Where January brings few faces.' 

This poet, though he live apart, 
Moved by his hospitable heart. 
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, 
To do the honors of his court. 
As fits a feathered lord of land ; 
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, 
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, 
Prints his small impress on the snow, 
Shows feats of his gymnastic play. 
Head downward, clinging to the spray. 

Here was this atom in full breath, 
Hurling defiance at vast death; 
This scrap of valor just for play 
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray. 
As if to shame my weak behavior ; 
I greeted loud my little savior, 
You pet! what dost here? and what for? 
In these woods, thy small Labrador, 
At this pinch, wee San Salvador ! 
What fire burns in that little chest 
So frolic, stout and self-possest ? 



202 THE TITMOUSE. 

Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine | 

Ashes and jet all hues outshine. 

Why are not diamonds black and gray^ 

To ape thy dare-devil array ? 

And I affirm, the spacious North 

Exists to draw thy virtue forth. 

I think no virtue goes with size; 

The reason of all cowardice 

Is, that men are overgrown, 

And, to be valiant, must come down 

To the titmouse dimension.' 

'T is good-will makes intelligence, 
And I began to catch the sense 
Of my bird's song : ' Live out of doors 
In the great woods, on prairie floors. 
I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, 
I too have a hole in a hollow tree ; 
And I like less when Summer beats 
With stifling beams on these retreats, 
Than noontide twilights which snow makes 
With tempest of the blinding flakes. 
For well the soul, if stout within, 
Can arm impregnably the skin; 
And polar frost my frame defied, 
Made of the air that blows outside.' 

With glad remembrance of my debt, 
I homeward turn ; farewell, my pet ! 
When here again thy pilgrim comes. 
He shaU bring store of seeds and crumba. 
Doubt not, so long as earth has bread, 
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed; 



THE HARP. 203 

The Providence that is most large 
Takes hearts like thine in special charge, 
Helps who for their own need are strong, 
And the sky doats on cheerful song. 
Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant 
O'er all that mass and minster vaunt ; 
For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, 
As 'twould accost some frivolous wing, 
Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be! 
And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee ! 
I think old Caesar must have heard 
In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, 
And, echoed in some frosty wold. 
Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. 
And I will write our annals new. 
And thank thee for a better clew, 
I, who dreamed not when I came here 
To find the antidote of fear, 
Now hear thee say in Roman key, 
Pcean! Veni, vidi, vici. 



THE HARP. 

One musician is sure. 
His wisdom will not fail. 
He has not tasted wine impure. 
Nor bent to passion frail. 
Age cannot cloud his memory, 
Nor grief untune his voice. 
Ranging down the ruled scale 
From tone of joy to inward wail. 



204 THE HARP. 

Tempering the pitch of all 

In his windy cave. 

He all the fables knows, 

And in their causes tells, — 

Knows Nature's rarest moodsj 

Ever on her secret broods. 

The Muse of men is coy, 

Oft courted will not come ; 

In palaces and market squares 

Entreated, she is dumb ; 

But my minstrel knows and tells 

The counsel of the gods, 

Knows of Holy Book the spells, 

Knows the law of Night and Day, 

And the heart of girl and boy, 

The tragic and the gay. 

And what is writ on Table Round 

Of Arthur and his peers ; 

What sea and land discoursing say 

In sidereal years. 

He renders all his lore 

In numbers wild as dreams, 

Modulating all extremes, — 

What the spangled meadow saith 

To the children who have faith ; 

Only to children children sing, 

Only to youth wiU spring be spring. 

Who is the Bard thus magnified? 
When did he sing? and where abide? 

Chief of song where poets feast 
Is the wind-harp which thou seest 
In the casement at my side. 



THE HARP. 205 

^olian harp, 
How strangely wise thy strain! 
Gay for youth, gay for youth, 
(Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,) 
In the hall at summer eve 
Fate and Beauty skilled to weave. 
From the eager opening strings 
Rung loud and bold the song. 
Who but loved the wind-harp's note ? 
How should not the poet doat 
On its mystic tongue, 
With its primeval memory, 
Reporting what old minstrels told 
Of Merlin locked the harp within, — 
Merlin paying the pain of sin, 
Pent in a dungeon made of air, — 
And some attain his voice to hear, 
Words of pain and cries of fear. 
But pillowed all on melody, 
As fits the griefs of bards to be. 
And what if that all-echoing shell, 
Which thus the buried Past can tell. 
Should rive the Future, and reveal 
What his dread folds would fain conceal? 
It shares the secret of the earth, 
And of the kinds that owe her birth. 
Speaks not of self that mystic tone, 
But of the Overgods alone: 
It trembles to the cosmic breath, — 
As it heareth, so it saith; 
Obeying meek the primal Cause, 
It is the tongue of mundane laws. 
And this, at least, I dare affirm, 
Since genius too has bound and term. 



206 THE HARP. 

There is no bard in all the choir, 

Not Homer's self, the poet sire. 

Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, 

Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure^ 

Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, 

Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, 

Scott, the delight of generous boys, 

Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,— 

Not one of all can put in verse, 

Or to this presence could rehearse 

The sights and voices ravishing 

The boy knew on the hills in spring, 

When pacing through the oaks he heard 

Sharp queries of the sentry-bird. 

The heavy grouse's sudden whir. 

The rattle of the kingfisher ; 

Saw bonfires of the harlot flies 

In the lowland, when day dies; 

Or marked, benighted and forlorn, 

The first far signal-fire of morn. 

These syllables that Nature spoke. 

And the thoughts that in him woke. 

Can adequately utter none 

Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. 

Therein I hear the Parcse reel 

The threads of man at their humming wheel, 

The threads of life and power and pain. 

So sweet and mournful falls the strain. 

And best can teach its Delphian chord 

How Nature to the soul is moored, 

If once again that silent string, 

As erst it wont, would thrill and ring. 



SEA-SHORE. 207 

Not long ago at eventide, 
It seemed, so listening, at my side 
A window rose, and, to say sooth, 
I looked forth on the fields of youths 
I saw fair boys bestriding steeds, 
I knew their forms in fancy weeds, 
Long, long concealed by sundering fates, 
Mates of my youth, — yet not my mates, 
Stronger and bolder far than I, 
With grace, with genius, well attired, 
And then as now from far admired. 
Followed with love 
They knew not of, 
With passion cold and shy. 
O joy, for what recoveries rare! 
Renewed, I breathe Elysian air, 
See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,— 
Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb! 
Or teach thou. Spring! the grand recoil 
Of life resurgent from the soil 
Wherein was dropped the mortal spoiL 



SEA -SHORE. 

I HEARD or seemed to hear the chiding Sea 
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come ? 
Am I not always here, thy summer home? 
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve ? 
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, 
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath? 



208 SEA-SHORE. 

Was ever building like my terraces ? 

Was ever couch magnificent as mine? 

Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn 

A little hut suffices like a town. 

I make your sculptured architecture vain, 

Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, 

And carve the coastwise mountain into caves 

Lo ! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, 

Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs 

Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab 

Older than all thy race. 

Behold the Sea, 
The opaline, the plentiful and strong, 
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, 
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July ; 
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, 
Purger of earth, and medicine of men ; 
Creating a sweet climate by my breath. 
Washing out harms and griefs from memory, 
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow. 
Giving a hint of that which changes not. 
Rich are the sea-gods : — who gives gifts but they ? 
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: 
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. 
For every wave is wealth to Daedalus, 
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work 
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O 

waves ! 
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift? 

I with my hammer pounding evermore 
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, 



jSONg of nature. 209 

Strewing my bed, and, in another age, 

Rebuild a continent of better men. 

Then I unbar the doors : my paths lead out 

The exodus of nations : I disperse 

Men to all shores that front the hoary main. 

I too have arts and sorceries; 
Illusion dwells forever with the wave. 
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal 
With credulous and imaginative man ; 
For, though he scoop my water in his palm, 
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds. 
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore, 
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle. 
To distant men, who must go there, or die. 



SONG OF NATURE. 

Mine are the night and morning, 
The pits of air, the gulf of space, 
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon. 
The innumerable days. 

I hide in the solar glory, 
I am dumb in the pealing song, 
I rest on the pitch of the torrent, 
In slumber I am strong. 

No numbers have counted my tallies, 
No tribes my house can fill, 

VOL. IX. 14 



210 SONG OF NATURE. 

I sit by the shining Fount of Life 
And' pour the deluge still ; 

And ever by delicate powers 
Gathering along the centuries 
From race on race the rarest flowerSj 
My wreath shall nothing miss. 

And many a thousand summers 
My gardens ripened well, 
And light from meliorating stars 
With firmer glory fell. 

I wrote the past in characters 
Of rock and fire the scroll, 
The building in the coral sea, 
The planting of the coal. 

And thefts from satellites and rings 
And broken stars I drew, 
And out of spent and aged things 
I formed the world anew; 

What time the gods kept carnival, 
Tricked out in star and flower. 
And in cramp elf and saurian forms 
They swathed their too much power. 

Time and Thought were my surveyors, 
They laid their courses well. 
They boiled the sea, and piled the layers 
Of granite, marl and shell. 



SONG OF NATURE. 211 

But he, the man-child glorious, — 
Where tarries he the while ? 
The rainbow shines his harbinger, 
The sunset gleams his smile. 

My boreal lights leap upward, 
Forthright my planets roll. 
And still the man-child is not born, 
The summit of the whole. 

Must time and tide forever run? 
WiU never my winds go sleep in the west ? 
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun 
And satellites have rest? 

Too much of donning and doffing, 
Too slow the rainbow fades, 
I weary of my robe of snow. 
My leaves and my cascades; 

I tire of globes and races, 
Too long the game is played; 
What without him is summer's pomp. 
Or winter's frozen shade ? 

I travail in pain for him. 
My creatures travail and wait; 
His couriers come by squadrons, 
He comes not to the gate. 

Twice I have moulded an image, 
And thrice outstretched my hand. 



212 SONG OF NATURE. 

Made one of day and one of night 
And one of the salt sea-sand. 

One in a Judsean manger. 

And one by Avon stream, 

One over against the mouths of Nile, 

And one in the Academe. 

I moulded kings and saviors. 
And bards o'er kings to rule ; — 
But fell the starry influence short, 
The cup was never full. 

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more^ 

And mix the bowl again ; 

Seethe, Fate ! the ancient elements. 

Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and paino 

Let war and trade and creeds and song 
Blend, ripen race on race. 
The sunburnt world a man shall breed 
Of all the zones and countless days. 

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, 
My oldest force is good as new, 
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 
Gives back the bending heavens in deWe 



TWO RIVERS. 213 



TWO EIVERS. 

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, 

Repeats the music of the rain ; 

But sweeter rivers pulsing flit 

Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. 

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: 
The stream I love unbounded goes 
Through flood and sea and firmament; 
Through light, through life, it forward flows. 

I see the inundation sweet, 

I hear the spending of the stream 

Through years, through men, through nature fleets 

Through love and thought, through power and dreaiUo 

Musketaquit, a goblin strong, 
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay ; 
They lose their grief who hear his song, 
And where he winds is the day of day. 

So forth and brighter fares my stream, — 
Who drink it shall not thirst again ; 
No darkness stains its equal gleam, 
And ages drop in it like rain. 



214 WALDEINSAMKEIT. 



WALBEINSAMKEIT. 

I DO not count the hours I spend 
In wandering by the sea; 
The forest is my loyal friend, 
Like God it useth me. 

In plains that room for shadows make 
Of skirting hills to lie, 
Bound in by streams which give and take 
Their colors from the sky; 

Or on the mountain-crest sublime, 
Or down the oaken glade, 
O what have I to do with time? 
For this the day was made. 

Cities of mortals woe-begone 
Fantastic care derides, 
But in the serious landscape lone 
Stern benefit abides. 

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy. 
And merry is only a mask of sadj 
But, sober on a fund of joy. 
The woods at heart are glad. 

There the great Planter plants 
Of fruitful worlds the grain, 
And with a million spells enchants 
The souls that walk in pain. 



WALDEINSAMKEIT, 215 

Still on the seeds of all he made 

The rose of beauty burns ; 

Through times that wear and forms that fade, 

Immortal youth returns. 

The black ducks mounting irom the lake, 
The pigeon in the pines, 
The bittern's boom, a desert make 
Which no false art refines. 

Down in yon watery nook, 

Where bearded mists divide, 

The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, 

The sires of Nature, hide. 

Aloft, in secret veins of air. 
Blows the sweet breath of song, 
O, few to scale those uplands dare. 
Though they to all belong! 

See thou bring not to field or stone 
The fancies found in books ; 
Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your owBj 
To brave the landscape's looks. 

Oblivion here thy wisdom is. 
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares; 
For a proud idleness like this 
Crowns all thy mean affairs. 



216 TERMINUS. 



TERMINUS. 

It is time to be old, 

To take in sail : — 

The god of bounds, 

Who sets to seas a shore, 

Came to me in his fatal rounds, 

And said : * No more ! 

No farther shoot 

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. 

Fancy departs : no more invent ; 

Contract thy firmament 

To compass of a tent. 

There's not enough for this and that, 

Make thy option which of two; 

Economize the failing river. 

Not the less revere the Giver, 

Leave the many and hold the feWo 

Timely wise accept the terms. 

Soften the fall with wary foot ; 

A little while 

Still plan and smile. 

And, — fault of novel germs, — 

Mature the unfallen fruit. 

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires. 

Bad husbands of their fires, 

Who, when they gave thee breath, 

Failed to bequeath 

The needful sinew stark as once. 

The Baresark marrow to thy bones, 

But left a legacy of ebbing veins, 

Inconstant beat and nerveless reins,— 



THE NUN'S ASPIRATION. 217 

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumbj 
Amid the gladiators, halt and mimb.' 

As the bird trims her to the gale, 
I trim myself to the storm of time, 
I man the rudder, reef the sail, 
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 
'Lowly faithful, banish fear. 
Right onward drive unharmed ; 
The port, well worth the cruise, is near. 
And every wave is charmed.' 



THE NUN'S ASPIRATION. 

The yesterday doth never smile. 

The day goes drudging through the while, 

Yet, in the name of Godhead, I 

The morrow front, and can defy ; 

Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, 

Cannot withhold his conquering aid. 

Ah me ! it was my childhood's thought, 

If He should make my web a blot 

On life's fair picture of delight, 

My heart's content would find it right. 

But O, these waves and leaves, — 

When happy stoic Nature grieves, 

No human speech so beautiful 

As their murmurs mine to lull, 

On this altar God hath built 

I lay my vanity and guilt; 



218 THE NUN'S ASPIRATION. 

Nor me can Hope or Passion urge 

Hearing as now the lofty dirge 

Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn. 

Nature's funeral high and dim, — 

Sable pageantry of clouds, 

Mourning summer laid in shrouds. 

Many a day shall dawn and die, 

Many an angel wander by, 

And passing, light my sunken turf 

Moist perhaps by ocean surf, 

Forgotten amid splendid tombs, 

Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms. 

On earth I dream ; — I die to be : 

Time, shake not thy bald head at me. 

I challenge thee to hurry past 

Or for my turn to fly too fast. 

Think me not numbed or halt with age, 

Or cares that earth to earth engage. 

Caught with love's cord of twisted beams. 

Or mired by climate's gross extremes. 

I tire of shams, I rush to be : 

I pass with yonder comet free, — 

Pass with the comet into space 

Which mocks thy aeons to embrace; 

-^ons which tardily unfold 

Realm beyond realm, — extent untold ; 

No early morn, no evening late, — 

Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate, 

Whose shining sons, too great for fame. 

Never heard thy weary name ; 

Nor lives the tragic bard to say 

How drear the part I held in one, 

How lame the other limped away. 



APRIL, 219 



APRIL. 



The April winds are magical 

And thrill our tuneful frames ; 

The garden walks are passional 

To bachelors and dames. 

The hedge is gemmed with diamonds, 

The air with Cupids full, 

The cobweb clues of Rosamond 

Guide lovers to the pool. 

Each dimple in the water, 

Each leaf that shades the rock 

Can cozen, pique and flatter, 

Can parley and provoke. 

Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, 

Know more than any book. 

Down with your doleful problems., 

And court the sunny brook. 

The south-winds are quick-witted^ 

The schools are sad and slow. 

The masters quite omitted 

The lore we care to knoWe 



220 MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE MOLIAN HARP. 



MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE 7EOTJAN HARP. 

Soft and softlier hold me, friends I 

Thanks if your genial care 

Unbind and give me to the air. 

Keep your lips or finger-tips 

For flute or spinet's dancing chips ; 

I await a tenderer touch, 

I ask more or not so much: 

Give me to the atmosphere, — < 

Where is the wind, my brother, — where ? 

Lift the sash, lay me within. 

Lend me your ears, and I begin. 

For gentle harp to gentle hearts 

The secret of the world imparts; 

And not to-day and not to-morrow 

Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow? 

But day by day, to loving ear 

Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer. 

I Ve come to live with you, sweet friends. 

This home my minstrel-journeyings ends. 

Many and subtle are my lays, 

The latest better than the first. 

For I caa mend the happiest days 

And charm the anguish of the worsto 



CUPIDO THE PAST. 221 



CUPIDO. 

The solid, solid universe 

Is pervious to Love ; 

With bandaged eyes he never errs, 

Around, below, above. 

His blinding light 

He flingeth white 

On God's and Satan's brood, 

And reconciles 

^j mystic wiles 

The evil and the good. 



THE PAST. 

The debt is paid, 

The verdict said, 

The Furies laid. 

The plague is stayed, 

All fortunes made ; 

Turn the key and bolt the door. 

Sweet is death forevermore. 

Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin. 

Nor murdering hate, can enter in. 

All is now secure and fast ; 

Not the gods can shake the Past; 

Flies-to the adamantine door 

Bolted down forevermore. 

None can re-enter there, — 



222 THE LAST FAREWELL. 

No thief so politic, 

No Satan with a royal trick 

Steal in by window, chink, or hole, 

To bind or unbind, add what lacked, 

Insert a leaf, or forge a name. 

New-face or finish what is packed? 

Alter or mend eternal Fa^3t. 



THE LAST FAREWELL. 

LINES WRITTEN" BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHEll, EDWARE 
BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HAR 
BOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832 

Farewell, ye lofty spires 
That cheered the holy light! 
Farewell, domestic fires 
That broke the gloom of night! 
Too soon those spires are lost, 
Too fast we leave the bay, 
Too soon by ocean tost 
From hearth and home away, 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell the busy town. 
The wealthy and the wise, 
Kind smile and honest frown 
From bright, familiar eyes. 
All these are fading now % 
Our brig hastes on her wa)', 



THE LAST FAREWELL. 223 

Her unremembering prow 
Is leaping o'er the sea, 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell, my mother fond, 
Too kind, too good to me ; 
Nor pearl nor diamond 
"Would pay my debt to thee. 
But even thy kiss denies 
Upon my cheek to stay; 
The winged vessel flies, 
And billows round her play, 

Far away, far awayo 

Farewell, my brothers true, 
My betters, yet my peers; 
How desert without you 
My few and evil years ! 
But though aye one in heart, 
Together sad or gay, 
Rude ocean doth us part ; 
"We separate to-day, 

Far away, far away^ 

Farewell I breathe again 
To dim New England's shore ; 
My heart shall beat not when 
I pant for thee no more. 
In yon green palmy isle, 
Beneath the tropic ray, 
I murmur never while 
For thee and thine I pray; 

Far away, far away. 



224 IN MEMORIAM. 

IN MEMOEIAM. 

EDWAKD BLISS EMERSON. 

I MOURN upon this battle-field, 

But not for those who perished here. 

Behold the river-bank 

Whither the angry farmers came, 

In sloven dress and broken rank, 

Nor thought of fame. 

Their deed of blood 

AU mankind praise ; 

Even the serene Reason says, 

It was well done. 

The wise and simple have one glance 

To greet yon stern head-stone, 

Which more of pride than pity gave 

To mark the Briton's friendless grave. 

Yet it is a stately tomb ; 

The grand return 

Of eve and morn, 

The year's fresh bloom, 

The silver cloud, 

Might grace the dust that is most proud. 

Yet not of these I muse 
In this ancestral place. 
But of a kindred face 
That never joy or hope shall here diffuse. 

Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star I 
What hast thou to do with these 



IN MEMORIAM. 225 

Haunting this bank's historic trees ? 

Thou born for noblest life, 

For action's field, for victor's car, 

Thou living champion of the right ? 

To these their penalty belonged : 

I grudge not these their bed of death. 

But thine to thee, who never wronged 

The poorest that drew breath. ^ 

All inborn power that could 
Consist with homage to the good 
Flamed from his martial eye; 
He who seemed a soldier born, 
He should have the helmet worn, 
All friends to fend, all foes defy, 
Fronting foes of God and man, 
Frowning down the evil-doer. 
Battling for the weak and poor. 
His from youth the leader's look 
Gave the law which others took. 
And never poor beseeching glance 
Shamed that sculptured countenance. 

There is no record left on earth, 
Save in tablets of the heart, 
Of the rich inherent worth, 
Of the grace that on him shone, 
Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit: 
He could not frame a word unfit, 
An act unworthy to be done; 
Honor prompted every glance, 
Honor came and sat beside him, 
In lowly cot or painful road, 



226 IN MEMORIAM. 

And evermore the cruel god 

Cried, " Onward ! " and the palm-crown showed 

Born for success he seemed, 

With grace to win, with heart to holdj 

"With shining gifts that took all eyesj 

With budding power in college-halls, 

As pledged in coming days to forge 

Weapons to guard the State, or scourge 

Tyrants despite their guards or walls. 

On his young promise Beauty smiled, 

Drew his free homage unbeguiled, 

And prosperous Age held out his hand, 

And richly his large future planned. 

And troops of friends enjoyed the tide, — 

All, all was given, and only health denied. 

I see him with superior smile 
Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train 
In lands remote, in toil and pain, 
With angel patience labor on. 
With the high port he wore erewhile, 
When, foremost of the youthful band, 
The prizes in all lists he won; 
Nor bate one jot of heart or hope, 
And, least of all, the loyal tie 
Which holds to home 'neath every sky, 
The joy and pride the pilgrim feels 
In hearts which round the hearth at home 
Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam. 

What generous beliefs console 
The brave whom Fate denies the goal! 
If others reach it, is content; 
To Heaven's high will his will is bent. 



IN MEMORIAM. 22T 

Firm on his heart relied, 

What lot soe'er betide, 

Work of his hand 

He nor repents nor grieves, 

Pleads for itself the fact, 

As unrepenting Nature leaves . 

Her every act. 

Fell the bolt on the branching oak 5 
The rainbow of his hope was broke ; 
No craven cry, no secret tear, — 
He told no pang, he knew no fear; 
Its peace sublime his aspect kept. 
His pur]30se woke, his features slept; 
And yet between the spasms of pain 
His genius beamed with joy again. 

O'er thy rich dust the endless smile 
Of Nature in thy Spanish isle 
Hints never loss or cruel break 
And sacrifice for love's dear sake. 
Nor mourn the unalterable Days 
That Genius goes and Folly stays. 
What matters how, or from what ground, 
The freed soul its Creator found? 
Alike thy memory embalms 
That orange-grove, that isle of palms. 
And these loved banks, whose oak-boughs bold 
Koot in the blood of heroes old. 



228 EXPERIENCE. 



EXPEEIENCE. 

The lords of life, the lords of life, '=> 

I saw them pass 

In their own guise, 

Like and unlike, 

Portly and grim, — 

Use and Surprise, 

Surface and Dream, 

Succession swift and spectral Wrong, 

Temperament without a tongue. 

And the inventor of the game 

Omnipresent without name ; — 

Some to see, some to be guessed, 

They marched from east to west: 

Little man, least of all. 

Among the legs of his guardians tall, 

Walked about with puzzled look. 

Him by the hand dear Nature took. 

Dearest Nature, strong and kind, 

Whispered, * Darling, never mind 1 

To-morrow they will wear another face, 

The founder thou ; these are thy race I ' 



COMPENSATION. 229 



COMPENSATION. 

The wings of Time are black and white. 
Pied with morning and with night. 
Mountain tall and ocean deep 
Trembling balance duly keep. 
In changing moon and tidal wave 
Glows the feud of Want and Have. 
Gauge of more and less through space, 
Electric star or pencil plays, 
The lonely Earth amid the balls 
That hurry through the eternal halls, 
A makeweight flying to the void, 
Supplemental asteroid, 
Or compensatory spark, 
Shoots across the neutral Dark. 

Man 's the elm, and "Wealth the vine ; 
Stanch and strong the tendrils twine : 
Though the frail ringlets thee deceive. 
None from its stock that vine can reave. 
Fear not, then, thou child infirm. 
There's no god dare wrong a worm; 
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts. 
And power to him who power exerts. 
Hast not thy share? On winged feet, 
Lo ! it rushes thee to meet ; 
And all that Nature made thy own, 
Floating in air or pent in stone. 
Will rive the hills and swim the sea, 
And, like thy shadow, follow thee. 



230 POLITICS. 



POLITICS. 



Gold and iron are good 

To buy iron and gold ; 

All earth's fleece and food 

For their like are sold. 

Boded Merlin wise, 

Proved Napoleon great, 

Nor kind nor coinage buys 

Aught above its rate. 

Fear, Craft and Avarice 

Cannot rear a State. 

Out of dust to build 

"What is more than dust, — 

Walls Amphion piled 

Phoebus stablish must. 

When the Muses nine 

With the Virtues meet. 

Find to their design 

An Atlantic seat, 

By green orchard boughs 

Fended from the heat, 

Where the statesman ploughs 

Furrow for the wheat, = — 

When the Church is social worth, 

When the state-house is the hearth. 

Then the perfect State is come, 

The republican at home. 



f 



HEROISM. — CHARA CTER. 231 



HEROISM. 

KuBY wine is drunk by knaves, 
Sugar spends to fatten slaves, 
Kose and vine-leaf deck buffoons ; 
Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons, 
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread, 
Lightning-knotted round his head; 
The hero is not fed on sweets. 
Daily his own heart he eats ; 
Chambers of the great are jails. 
And head-winds right for royal sails. 



CHARACTER.^ 

The sun set, but set not his hope*. 
Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up : 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye ; 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time. 
He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the Age of Gold again : 
His action won such reverence sweet 
As hid all measure of the feat. 

1 A part of this motto was taken from The Poet, an early poem 
Uever published by Mr. Emerson. See Appendix. 



232 CULTURE. — FRIENDSHIP, 



CULTURE. 

Cae" rules or tutors educate 
The semigod whom we await? 
He must be musical, 
Tremulous, impressional, 
Alive to gentle influence 
Of landscape and of sky, 
And tender to the spirit-touch 
Of man's or maiden's eye: 
But, to his native centre fast, 
Shall into Future fuse the Past, 
And the world's flowing fates in his own mould 
recast. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

A EUDDY drop of manly blood 

The surging sea outweighs, 

The world uncertain comes and goes ; 

The lover rooted stays. 

I fancied he was fled, — 

And, after many a year. 

Glowed unexhausted kindliness, 

Like daily sunrise there. 

My careful heart was free again, 

O friend, my bosom said. 

Through thee alone the sky is arched, 

Through thee the rose is red ; 

All things through thee take nobler form, 



BEAUTY. 23S 

And look beyond the earth, 

The mill-round of our fate appears 

A sun-path in thy worth. 

Me too thy nobleness has taught 

To master my despair ; 

The fountains of my hidden life 

Are through thy friendship fair. 



BEAUTY. 

Was never form and never face 
So sweet to Seyd as only grace 
Which did not slumber like a stone, 
But hovered gleaming and was gone. 
Beauty chased he everywhere, 
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. 
He smote the lake to feed his eye 
With the beryl beam of the broken wave 5 
He flung in pebbles well to hear 
The moment's music which they gave. 
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone 
From nodding pole and belting zone. 
He heard a voice none else could hear 
From centred and from errant sphere. 
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, 
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime. 
In dens of passion, and pits of woe. 
He saw strong Eros struggling through. 
To sun the dark and solve the curse. 
And beam to the bounds of the universe. 



§34 MANNERS, 

While thus to love he gave his days 

In loyal worship, scorning praise, 

How spread their lures for him in vain 

Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain ! 

He thought it happier to be dead, 

To die for Beauty, than live for bread. 



MANNERS. 

Grace, Beauty and Caprice 

Build this golden portal; 

Graceful women, chosen men, 

Dazzle every mortal. 

Their sweet and lofty countenance 

His enchanted food ; 

He need not go to them, their forms 

Beset his solitude. 

He looketh seldom in their face, 

His eyes explore the ground, — 

The green grass is a looking-glass 

Whereon their traits are found. 

Little and less he says to them, 

So dances his heart in his breast i 

Their tranquil mien bereaveth him 

Of wit, of words, of rest. 

Too weak to win, too fond to shun 

The tyrants of his doom. 

The much deceived Endymion 

Slips behind a tomb. 



ART. 235 



ART. 



Give to barrows, trays and pans 

Grace and glimmer of romance ; 

Bring the moonlight into noon 

Hid in gleaming piles of stone ; 

On the city's paved street 

Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweety 

Let spouting fountains cool the air, 

Singing in the sun-baked square ; 

Let statue, picture, park and hall. 

Ballad, flag and festival, 

The past restore, the day adorn. 

And make to-morrow a new morn. 

So shall the drudge in dusty frock 

Spy behind the city clock 

Retinues of airy kings. 

Skirts of angels, starry wings, 

His fathers shining in bright fables. 

His children fed at heavenly tables, 

'T is the privilege of Art 

Thus to play its cheerful part, 

Man on earth to acclimate 

And bend the exile to his fate, 

And, moulded of one element 

With the days and firmament, 

Teach him on these as stairs to climbj 

And live on even terms with Time; 

Whilst upper life the slender rill 

Of human sense doth overfill. 



236 . SPIRITUAL LAWS.— UNITY. 



SPIRITUAL LAWS. 

The living Heaven thy prayers respects 
House at once and architect, 
Quarrying man's rejected hours, 
Builds therewith eternal towers; 
Sole and self-commanded works, 
Fears not undermining days, 
Grows by decays. 

And, by the famous might that lurks 
In reaction and recoil. 
Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil; 
Forging, through swart arms of Offence^ 
The silver seat of Innocence. 



UNITY. 

Space is ample, east and west, 

But two cannot go abreast, 

Cannot travel in it two i 

Yonder masterful cuckoo 

Crowds every Qg^ out of the nest. 

Quick or dead, except its own; 

A spell is laid on sod and stone, 

Night and Day were tampered with. 

Every quality and pith 

Surcharged and sultry with a power 

That works its will on age and hour. 



WORSHIP. 237 



WORSHIP. 



This is he, who, felled by foes, 

Sprung harmless up, refreshed hj blows: 

He to captivity was sold. 

But him no prison-bars would hold : 

Though they sealed him in a rock, 

Mountain chains he can unlock : 

Thrown to lions for their meat. 

The crouching lion kissed his feet; 

Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, 

But arched o'er him an honoring vault. 

This is he men miscall Fate, 

Threading dark ways, arriving late, 

But ever coming in time to crown 

The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. 

He is the oldest, and best known. 

More near than aught thou call'st thy own. 

Yet, greeted in another's eyes, 

Disconcerts with glad surprise. 

This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, 

Floods with blessings unawares. 

Draw, if thou canst, the mystic lin@ 

Severing rightly his from thine, 

"Which is human, which divine- 



238 QUATRAINS. 



QUATRAINS. 



High was her heart, and yet was well inclined, 

Her manners made of bounty well refined 5 

Far capitals and marble courts, her eye still seemed 

to see, 
Minstrels and kings and high-born dames, and of the 

best that be. 

"SUUM CUIQXJE." 

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? 
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bilL 



Every thought is public, 
Every nook is wide ; 
Thy gossips spread each whispePj 
And the gods from side to side. 



He who has no hands 
Perforce must use his tongue 5 
Foxes are so cunning 
Because they are not strong. 



QUATRAINS. 239 



ARTIST. 

Quit the hut, frequent the palace, 
Reck not what the people say ; 
For still, where'er the trees grow 
Huntsmen find the easiest way. 



Ever the Poet from the land 
Steers his bark and trims his sail ; 
Right out to sea his courses stand. 
New worlds to find in pinnace frail. 



To clothe the fiery thought 
In simple words succeeds. 
For still the craft of genius is 
To mask a king in weeds. 



Go thou to thy learned task, 
I stay with the flowers of spring: 
Do thou of the ages ask 
What me the hours will bring. 

GARDEI5-ER. 

True Brahmin, in the morning meadows wet, 
Expound the Vedas of the violet, 
Or, hid in vines, peeping through many a loop. 
See the plum redden, and the beurre stoop. 



240 QUATRAINS. 

FORESTER. 

He took the color of his vest 
From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast % 
For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hidej 
So walks the woodman, unespied. 

NORTHMAN. 

The gale that wrecked you on the sand. 
It helped my rowers to row; 
The storm is my best galley hand 
And drives me where I go, 

FROM ALCUIN. 

The sea is the road of the bold, 
Frontier of the wheat-sown plains, 
The pit wherein the streams are rolled 
And fountain of the rains. 

excelsior. 

Over his head were the maple buds, 
And over the tree was the moon, 
And over the moon were the starry studs 
That drop from the angels' shoon. 



With beams December planets dart 
His cold eye truth and conduct scanned, 
July was in his sunny heart, 
October in his liberal hand. 



QUATRAINS, 241 



BORROWING. 

FROM THE FRENCH. 



Some of your hurts you have cured, 
And the sharpest you still have survived, 
But what torments of grief you endured 
From evils which never arrived! 



Boon" Nature yields each day a brag which we now 

first behold, 
And trains us on to slight the new, as if it were 

the old: 
But blest is he, who, playing deep, yet haply asks 

not .why, 
Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live or 

die. 



Her planted eye to-day controls, 
Is in the morrow most at home. 
And sternly calls to being souls 
That curse her when they come. 

HOROSCOPE. 

Ere he was born, the stars of fate 
Plotted to make him rich and great: 
When from the womb the babe was loosed, 
The gate of gifts behind him closed. 
.IX. 16 



242 QUATRAINS, 

POWEK. 

Cast the bantling on the rocks, 
Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat, 
Wintered with the hawk and fox, 
Power and speed be hands and feet. 

CLIMACTERIC. 

I AM not wiser for my age, 

Nor skilful by my grief; 

Life loiters at the book's first page,— 

Ah ! could we turn the leaf. 

HERI, CKAS, HODIE. 

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seeiif 
To-day shnks poorly off unmarked between : 
Future or Past no richer secret folds, 
friendless Present! than thy bosom holds. 



NiGHT-DKEAMS trace on Memory's wall 
Shadows of the thoughts of day, 
And thy fortunes, as they fall, 
The bias of the will betray. 



Love on Ms errand bound to go 
Can swim the flood and wade through snow. 
Where way is none, 'twill creep and wind 
And eat through Alps its home to find. 



I 



QUATRAINS. 243 

SACRIFICE. 

Though love repine, and reason chafe. 
There came a voice without reply, — > 
*'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
When for the truth he ought to die.' 

PEKICLES. 

Well and wisely said the Greek, 
Be thou faithful, but not fond ; 
To the altar's foot thy fellow seek,— 
The Furies wait beyond. 



Test of the poet is knowledge of love, 
For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove; 
Never was poet, of late or of yore, 
Who was not tremulous with love-lore. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

I SEE all human wits 
Are measured but a few ; 
Unmeasured still my Shakspeare site. 
Lone as the blessed Jew. 



Her passions the shy violet 
From Hafiz never hides ; 
Love-longings of the raptured bird 
The bird to him confides. 



^44 TRANSLATIONS. 



NATURE -m LEASTS. 



As sings the pine-tree in the wind, 
So sings in the wind a spng of the pine ; 
Her strength and soul has laughing France 
Shed in each drop of wine. 



AAAKPYN NEMONTAI AIONA. 

* A NEW commandment,' said the smiling Muse, 
' I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach ' ; - 
Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew pale, 
And, on the instant, rosier clouds upbore 
Hafiz and Shakspeare with their shining choirs. 



TEANSLATIONS. 

SONNET OF MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTTI. 

Never did sculptor's dream unfold 

A form which marble doth not hold 

In its white block ; yet it therein shall find 

Only the hand secure and bold 

Which still obeys the mind. 

So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame., 

The ill I shun, the good I claim ; 

I alas ! not well alive, 

Miss the aim whereto I strive. 



TRANSLATIONS. 245 

Not love, nor beauty's pride, 

Nor Fortune, nor thy coldness, can I chide, 

If, whilst within thy heart abide 

Both death and pity, my unequal skill 

Fails of the life, but draws the death and ilL 



THE EXILE. 
FROM THE PERSIAN OF KERMANI. 

In Farsistan the violet spreads 
Its leaves to the rival sky; 
I ask how far is the Tigris flood, 
And the vine that grows thereby? 

Except the amber morning wind, 
Not one salutes me here ; 
There is no lover in all Bagdat 
To offer the exile cheer. 

I know that thou, O morning wind! 
O'er Kernan's meadow blowest. 
And thou, heart-warming nightingale I 
My father's orchard knowest. 

The merchant hath stuffs of price. 
And gems from the sea-washed strand, 
And princes offer me grace 
To stay in the Syrian land; 

But what is gold for, but for gifts ? 
And dark, without love, is the dayi 



246 TRANSLATIONS. 

And all that I see in Bagdat 
Is the Tigris to float me away. 



FROM HAEIZ, 

I SAID to heaven that glowed above, 
O hide yon sun-filled zone, 
Hide all the stars you boast; 
For, in the world of love 
And estimation true, 
The heaped-up harvest of the moon 
Is worth one barley-corn at most, 
The Pleiads' sheaf but two. 



If my darling should depart, 

And search the skies for prouder friends, 

God forbid my angry heart 

In other love should seek amends. 

When the blue horizon's hoop 
Me a little pinches here, 
Instant to my grave I stoop. 
And go find thee in the sphere. 



Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jest 
Mad Destiny this tender stripling played ; 
For a warm breast of maiden to his breast, 
She laid a slab of marble on his head. 



TRANSLATIONS. 247 



They say, through patience, chalk 
Becomes a ruby stone ; 
Ah, yes ! but by the true heart's blood 
The chalk is crimson grown. 



FRIENDSHIP. 



Thou foolish Hafiz! Say, do churls 
Know the worth of Oman's pearls ? 
Give the gem which dims the moon 
To the noblest, or to none. 



Dearest, where thy shadow falls, 
Beauty sits and Music calls ; 
Where thy form and favor come. 
All good creatures have their home. 



On prince or bride no diamond stone 
Half so gracious ever shone, 
As the light of enterprise 
Beaming from a young man's eyes. 

FROM OMAR KHAY YAM. 

Each spot where tulips prank their stat^ 
Has drunk the life-blood of the great; 
The violets yon field which stain 
Are moles of beauties Time hath slain. 



248 TRANSLATIONS. 



He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to 

spare, 
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. 



On two days it steads not to run from thy grave, 
The appointed, and the unappointed day; 
On the first, neither balm nor physician can pave, 
Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay. 



FROM IBN JEMIN. 

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind 

serene ; — 
A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned 

queen ; 
And the second, borrowed money, — though the smiling 

lender say 
That he will not demand the debt until the Judgment 

Day. 

THE FLUTE. 

FROM HILALI. 

Haek what, now loud, now low, the pining flute com- 
plains. 

Without tongue, yellow-cheeked, full of winds that wail 
and sigh ; 

Saying, Sweetheart ! the old mystery remains, — 

If I am I ; thou, thou ; or thou art I ? 



TRANSLATIONS 249 



TO THE SHAH. 
FKOM HAFIZ. 



Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down, 
Poises Arcturus aloft morning and evening his spear. 



TO THE SHAH, 
FROM ENWERI. 



Not in their houses stand the stars, 
But o'er the pinnacles of thine! 



to the shah. 

FROM ENWERI. 



Feom thy worth and weight the stars gravitate, 
And the equipoise of heaven is thy house's equipoise, 



song of setd nimetollah of KUHISTAN". 

[Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronomical 
dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the heavenly- 
bodies, by spinning on his own axis, whilst at the same time he re- 
volves round the Sheikh in the centre, representing the sun ; and, as 
he spins, he sings the Song of Seyd Nimetollah of Kuhistan.] 

Spin the ball! I reel, I burn, 
Nor head from foot can I discern. 
Nor my heart from love of mine, 
Nor the wine-cup from the wine. 



250 TRANSLATIONS. 

All my doing, all my leaving; 
Reaches not to my perceiving ; 
Lost in whirling spheres I rove, 
And knovr only that I love. 

I am seeker of the stone, 
Living gem of Solomon ; 
From the shore of souls arrived, 
In the sea of sense I dived; 
But what is land, or what is wavep 
To me who only jewels crave? 
Love is the air-fed fire intense, 
And my heart the frankincense; 
As the rich aloes flames, I glow, 
Yet the censer cannot know. 
I 'm all-knowing, yet unknowing ; 
Stand not, pause not, in my goingo 

Ask not me, as Muftis can. 
To recite the Alcoran; 
Well I love the meaning sweet, - — 
I tread the book beneath my feet. 

Lo ! the God's love blazes higher, 
Till all difference expire. 
What are Moslems ? what are Giaours ? 
All are Love's, and all are ours. 
I embrace the true believers. 
But I reck not of deceivers. 
Firm to Heaven my bosom clings. 
Heedless of inferior things; 
Down on earth there, underfoot, 
What men chatter know I not. 



APPENDIX 



THE POET.i 



Right upward on the road of fame 

With sounding steps the poet came ; 

Born and nourished in miracles, 

His feet were shod with golden beUs, 

Or where he stepped the soil did peal 

As if the dust were glass and steel. 

The gallant child where'er he came 

Threw to each fact a tuneful name. 

The things whereon he cast his eyes 

Could not the nations rebaptize, 

Nor Time's snows hide the names he setj 

Nor last posterity forget. 

Yet every scroll whereon he wrote 

In latent fire his secret thought, 

Fell unregarded to the ground, 

Unseen by such as stood around. 

The pious wind took it away. 

The reverent darkness hid the lay. 

Methought like water-haunting birds 

Divers or dippers were his words, 

And idle clowns beside the mere 

At the new vision gape and jeer. 

1 This poem was begun as early as 1831, probably earlier, and re- 
ceived additions for more than twenty years, but was never completed. 
In its early form, it was entitled, The Discontented Poet, A Masque. 



254 THE POET. 

But when the noisy scorn was past, 
Emerge the winged words in haste. 
New-bathed, new-trimmed, on healthy wing. 
Right to the heaven they steer and sing. 

A Brother of the world, his song 

Sounded like a tempest strong 

Which tore from oaks their branches broad, 

And stars from the ecliptic road. 

Times wore he as his clothing- weeds, 

He sowed the sun and moon for seeds. 

As melts the iceberg in the seas. 

As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze, 

As snow-banks thaw in April's beam. 

The solid kingdoms like a dream 

Resist in vain his motive strain. 

They totter now and float amain. 

For the Muse gave special charge 

His learning should be deep and large, 

And his training should not scant 

The deepest lore of wealth or want : 

His flesh should feel, his eyes should read 

Every maxim of dreadful Need; 

In its fulness he should taste 

Life's honeycomb, but not too fast ; 

Full fed, but not intoxicated ; 

He should be loved ; he should be hated 

A blooming child to children dear, 

His heart should palpitate with fear. 

And well he loved to quit his home 

And, Calmuck, in his wagon roam 

To read new landscapes and old skies; — 



THE POET. 255 

But oh, to see his solar eyes 

Like meteors which chose their way 

And rived the dark like a new day ! 

Not lazy grazing on all they saw, 

Each chimney-pot and cottage door, 

Farm-gear and village picket-fence, 

But, feeding on magnificence. 

They bounded to the horizon's edge 

And searched with the sun's privilege. 

Landward they reached the mountains old 

Where pastoral tribes their flocks infold, 

Saw rivers run seaward by cities high 

And the seas wash the low-hung sky; 

Saw the endless rack of the firmament 

And the sailing moon where the cloud was rent, 

And through man and woman and sea and star 

Saw the dance of Nature forward and far. 

Through worlds and races and terms and times 

Saw musical order and pairing rhymes. 

II. 

The gods talk in the breath of the woods, 

They talk in the shaken pine, 

And fill the long reach of the old seashore 

With dialogue divine ; 

And the poet who overhears 

Some random word they say 

Is the fated man of men 

Whom the ages must obey: 

One who having nectar drank 

Into blissful orgies sank; 

He takes no mark of night or day^ 

He cannot go, he cannot stay, 



256 THE POET. 

He would, yet would not, counsel keep, 
But, like a walker in his sleep 
With staring eye that seeth none, 
Ridiculously up and down 
Seeks how he may fitly tell 
The heart-o'erlading miracle. 

Not yet, not yet, 

Impatient friend, — 

A little while attend; 

Not yet I sing: but I must wait, 

My hand upon the silent string, 

Fully until the end. 

I see the coming light, 

I see the scattered gleams, 

Aloft, beneath, on left and right 

The stars' own ether beams ; 

These are but seeds of days, 

Not yet a steadfast morn, 

An intermittent blaze. 

An embryo god unborn. 

How all things sparkle, 

The dust is alive. 

To the birth they arrive: 

I snuff the breath of my morning afar, 

I see the pale lustres condense to a star; 

The fading colors fix. 

The vanishing are seen, 

And the world that shall be 

Twins the world that has been. 

I know the appointed hour, 

I greet my office well, 

Never faster, never slower 

Revolves the fatal wheel! 



THE POET. 257 

The Fairest enchants me, 

The Mighty commands me, 

Saying, 'Stand in thy place; 

Up and eastward turn thy face ; 

As mountains for the morning wait, 

Coming early, coming late, 

So thou attend the enriching Fate 

Which none can stay, and none accelerate/ 

I am neither faint nor weary. 

Fill thy will, O faultless heart! 

Here from youth to age I tarry, — 

Count it flight of bird or dart. 

My heart at the heart of things 

Heeds no longer lapse of time, 

Rushing ages moult their wings, 

Bathing in thy day sublime. 

The sun set, but set not his hope : — 
Stars rose, his faith was earlier up : 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye, 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of Time. 

Beside his hut and shading oak, 
Thus to himself the poet spoke, 
^ I have supped to-night with gods, 
I will not go under a wooden roof ; 
As I walked among the hills 
In the love which nature fills. 
The great stars did not shine aloof, 
They hurried down from their deep abodes 
And hemmed me in their glittering troop. 



258 THE POET. 

* Divine Inviters ! I accept 
The courtesy ye have shown and kept 
From ancient ages for the bard, 
To modulate 
With finer fate 
A fortune harsh and hard. 
With- aim like yours 
I watch your course, 
Who never break your lawful dance 
By error or intemperance. 
O birds of ether without wings ! 
O heavenly ships without a sail ! 
O fire of fire ! best of things ! 
O mariners who never fail ! 
Sail swiftly through your amber vault, 
An animated law, a presence to exalt.* 

Ah, happy if a sun or star 
Could chain the wheel of Fortune's car. 
And give to hold an even state, 
Neither dejected nor elate. 
That haply man upraised might keep 
The height of Fancy's far-eyed steep. 
In vain : the stars are glowing wheels. 
Giddy with motion Nature reels. 
Sun, moon, man, undulate and stream. 
The mountains flow, the solids seem, 
Change acts, reacts ; back, forward hurled. 
And pause were palsy to the world. — 
The morn is come : the starry crowds 
Are hid behind the thrice-piled clouds ; 
The new day lowers, and equal odds 
Have changed not less the guest of godsi 



THE POET. 269 

Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn, 
The child of genius sits forlorn: 
Between two sleeps a short day's stealth, 
'Mid many ails a brittle health, 
A cripple of God, half true, half formed, 
And by great sparks Promethean warmed«, 
Constrained by impotence to adjourn 
To infinite time his eager turn, 
His lot of action at the urn. 
He by false usage pinned about 
No breath therein, no passage out, 
Cast wishful glances at the stars 
And wishful saw the Ocean stream : — 
'Merge me in the brute universe, 
Or lift to a diviner dream ! ' 

Beside him sat enduring love, 

Upon him noble eyes did rest, 

Which, for the Genius that there strove^ 

The follies bore that it invest. 

They spoke not, for their earnest sense 

Outran the craft of eloquence. 

He whom God had thus preferred, — 

To whom sweet angels ministered. 

Saluted him each morn as brother. 

And bragged his virtues to each others -»- 

Alas! how were they so beguiled, 

And they so pure? He, foolish child, 

A facile, reckless, wandering will. 

Eager for good, not hating ill. 

Thanked Nature for each stroke she dealt | 

On his tense chords all strokes were felt, 



260 THE POET. 

The good, the bad with equal zeal, 
He asked, he only asked, to feel. 
Timid, self-pleasing, sensitive, 
With Gods, with fools, content to livec 
Bended to fops who bent to liim; 
Surface with surfaces did swim. 

^ Sorrow, sorrow ! ' the angels cried, 
*Is this dear Nature's manly pride? 
Call hither thy mortal enemy. 
Make him glad thy fall to see ! 
Yon waterflag, yon sighing osier, 
A drop can shake, a breath can fan; 
Maidens laugh and weep ; Composure 
Is the pudency of man.' 

Again by night the poet went 
From the Hghted halls 
Beneath the darkling firmament 
To the seashore, to the old seawalls, 
Forth paced a star beneath the cloudj 
The constellation glittered soon, — 
'2 You have no lapse ; so have ye glowed 
But once in your dominion. 
And yet, dear stars, I know ye shine 
Only by needs and loves of mine; 
Light-loving, light-asking life in me 
Feeds those eternal lamps I see. 
And I to whom your light has spoken^ 
I, pining to be one of you, 
I fall, my faith is broken, 
Ye scorn me from your deeps of blue 
Or if perchance, ye orbs of Fate, 



THE POET. 261 

Your ne'er averted glance 

Beams with a will compassionate 

On sons of time and chance, 

Then clothe these hands with power 

In just proportion, 

Nor plant immense designs 

Where equal means are none/ 



CHORUS OF SPIRITS. 

Means, dear brother, ask them not^ 
Soul's desire is means enow, 

Pure content is angel's lot, 
Thine own theatre art thou. 

Gentler far than falls the snow 
In the woodwalks still and low 
Fell the lesson on his heart 
And woke the fear lest angels part 



I see your forms with deep contentj 
I know that ye are excellent, 

But will ye stay? 
I hear the rustle of wings, 
Ye meditate what to say 
Ere ye go to quit me for ever and aye< 



Brother, we are no phantom hand; 
Brother, accept this fatal hand. 



262 THE POET. 

Aches thine unbelieving heart 
With the fear that we must part? 
See, all we are rooted here 
By one thought to one same sphere 5 
From thyself thou canst not flee, — 
From thyself no more can we. 



Suns and stars their courses keep, 

But not angels of the deep: 

Day and night their turn observe, 

But the day of day may swerve. 

Is there warrant that the waves 

Of thought in their mysterious caves 

Will heap in me their highest tide, 

In me therewith beatified? 

Unsure the ebb and flood of thought, 

The moon comes back, — the Spirit noto 



Brother, sweeter is the Law 
Than all the grace Love ever saw; 
We are its suppliants. By it, we 
Draw the breath of Eternity; 
Serve thou it not for daily bread, — 
Serve it for pain and fear and needc 
Love it, though it hide its light; 
By love behold the sun at night. 
If the Law should thee forget, 
More enamoured serve it yet; 
Though it hate thee, suffer long; 
Put the Spirit in the wrong; 



Kas 



THE POET. 263 

Brother, no decrepitude 

Chills the limbs of Time ; 
As fleet his feet, his hands as good, 

His vision as sublime : 
On Nature's wheels there is no rust; 
Nor less on man's enchanted dust 

Beauty and Force alight. 



FRAGMENTS ON THE POET AND THE 
POETIC GIFT.i 



There are beggars in Iran and Araby, 
Said was hungrier than all ; 
Hafiz said he was a fly 
That came to every festival. 
He came a pilgrim to the Mosque 
On trail of camel and caravan. 
Knew every temple and kiosk 
Out from Mecca to Ispahan ; 
Northward he went to the snowy hills, 
At court he sat in the grave Divan. 
His music was the south-wind's sigh, 
His lamp, the maiden's downcast eye, 
And ever the spell of beauty came 
And turned the drowsy world to flame. 
By lake and stream and gleaming hall 
And modest copse and the forest tall, 

1 The poem " Beauty," the motto for the Essay bearing that name, 
as originally part of this poem. 



264 THE POET, 

Where'er he went, the magic guide 

Kept its place by the poet's side. 

Said melted the days like cups of pearl, 

Served high and low, the lord and the churl, 

Loved harebells nodding on a rock, 

A cabin hung with curling smoke. 

Ring of axe or hum of wheel 

Or gleam which use can paint on steel, 

And huts and tents ; nor loved he less 

Stately lords in palaces. 

Princely women hard to please. 

Fenced by form and ceremony, 

Decked by courtly rites and dress 

And etiquette of gentilesse. 

But when the mate of the snow and wind, 

He left each civil scale behind: 

Him wood-gods fed with honey wild 

And of his memory beguiled. 

He loved to watch and wake 

"When the wing of the south-wind whipt the lake 

And the glassy surface in ripples brake 

And fled in pretty frowns away 

Like the flitting boreal lights. 

Rippling roses in northern nights, 

Or like the thrill of ^olian strings 

In which the sudden wind-god rings. 

In caves and hollow trees he crept 

And near the wolf and panther slept. 

He came to the green ocean's brim 

And saw the wheeling sea-birds skim, 

Summer and winter, o'er the wave. 

Like creatures of a skiey mould, 

Impassible to heat or cold. 



I 



THE POET, 265 

He stood before the tumbling main 
With joy too tense for sober brain ; 
He shared the Hfe of the element, 
The tie of blood and home was rent: 
As if in him the welkin walked, 
The winds took flesh, the mountains talked, 
And he the bard, a crystal soul 
Sphered and concentric with the whole. 



The Dervish whined to Said, 
*'Thou didst not tarry while I prayed." 

But Saadi answered, 
^^ Once with manlike love and fear 
I gave thee for an hour my ear, 
I kept the sun ^and stars at bay. 
And love, for words thy tongue could 
I cannot sell my heaven again 
For all that rattles in thy brain." 



Said Saadi, " When I stood before 

Hassan the camel-driver's door, 

I scorned the fame of Timour brave j 

Timour, to Hassan, was a slave. 

In every glance of Hassan's eye 

I read great years of victory. 

And I, who cower mean and small 

In the frequent interval 

When wisdom not with me resides, 

Worship Toil's vrisdom that abides. 



266 THE POET. 

I shunned his eyeS;^ that faithful man's, 
I shunned the toiling Hassan's glance." 



The civil world will much forgive 

To bards who from its maxims live, 

But if, grown bold, the poet dare 

Bend his practice to his prayer 

And following his mighty heart 

Shame the times and live apart, ^ — 

Vce solis ! I found this. 

That of goods I could not miss 

If I fell within the line, 

Once a member, all was mine, 

Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains, 

Fortune's delectable mountains ; 

But if I would walk alone. 

Was neither cloak nor crumb my own. 

And thus the high Muse treated me, 

Directly never greeted me. 

But when she spread her dearest spells, 

Feigned to speak to some one else. 

I was free to overhear. 

Or I might at will forbear ; 

Yet mark me well, that idle word 

Thus at random overheard 

Was the symphony of spheres. 

And proverb of a thousand years, 

The light wherewith all planets shone, 

The livery all events put on, 

It fell in rain, it grew in grain, 

It put on flesh in friendly form, 

Frowned in my foe and growled in storm, 



THE POET. 26T 

It spoke in Tullius Cicero, 

In Milton and in Angelo : 

I travelled and founi it at Rome ; 

Eastward it filled all Heathendom 

And it lay on my hearth when I came home* 



Mask thy wisdom with delight, 

Toy with the bow, yet hit the white, 

As Jelaleddin old and gray; 

He seemed to bask, to dream and play 

Without remoter hope or fear 

Than still to entertain his ear 

And pass the burning summer-time 

In the palm-grove with a rhyme ; 

Heedless that each cmming word 

Tribes and ages overheard: 

Those idle catches told the laws 

Holding Nature to her cause. 

God only knew how Saadi dined; 
Roses he ate, and drank the wind; 
He freelier breathed beside the pine, 
In cities he was low and mean ; 
The mountain waters washed him clean 
And by the sea-waves he was strong; 
He heard their medicinal song, 
Asked no physician but the wave, 
Ko palace but his sea-beat cave. 

Saadi held the Muse in awe. 
She was his mistress and his laws 



268 THE POET, 

A twelvemonth he could silence hold, 
Nor ran to speak till she him told ; 
He felt the flame, the fanning wings, 
Nor offered words till they were things, 
Glad when the solid mountain swims 
In music and uplifting hymns. 

Charmed from fagot and from steel, 
Harvests grew upon his tongue, 
Past and future must reveal 
All their heart when Saadi sung ; 
Sun and moon must fall amain 
Like sower's seeds into his brain. 
There quickened to be born again. 



The free winds told him what they knew, 

Discoursed of fortune as they blew ; 

Omens and signs that filled the air 

To him authentic witness bare ; 

The birds brought auguries on their wings. 

And carolled undeceiving things 

Him to beckon, him to warn ; 

Well might then the poet scorn 

To learn of scribe or courier 

Things writ in vaster character ; 

And on his mind at dawn of day 

Soft shadows of the evening lay. 



Pale genius roves alone, 
No scout can track his way, 



THE POET, 269 



None credits him till he have shown 
His diamonds to the day. 

Not his the f caster's wine, 
Nor land, nor gold, nor power, 
By want and pain God screeneth him 
Till his elected hour. 

Go, speed the stars of thought 
On to their shining goals : — 
The sower scatters broad his seed, 
The wheat thou strew'st be souls. 



A DULL uncertain brain, 

But gifted yet to know 

That God has cherubim who go 

Singing an immortal strain, 

Immortal here below. 

I know the mighty bards, 

I listen when they sing, 

And now I know 

The secret store 

Which these explore 

When they with torch of genius pierce 

The tenfold clouds that cover 

The riches of the universe 

From God's adoring lover. 

And if to me it is not given 

To fetch one ingot thence 

Of that unfading gold of Heaven 

His merchants may dispense. 



270 THE POET. 

Yet well I know the royal mine, 
And know the sparkle of its ore, 

Know Heaven's truth from lies that shine, - 
Explored they teach us to explore. 



I GKIEVE that better souls than mine 
Docile read my measured line : 
High destined youths and holy maids 
Hallow these my orchard shades ; 
Environ me and me baptize 
With light that streams from gracious eyes. 
I dare not be beloved and known, 
I ungrateful, I alone. 

Ever find me dim regards, 

Love of ladies, love of bards, 

Marked forbearance, compliments, 

Tokens of benevolence. 

What then, can I love myself? 

Fame is profitless as pelf, 

A good in Nature not allowed 

They love me, as I love a cloud 

Sailing falsely in the sphere. 

Hated mist if it come near. 



Foe, thought, and not praise % 
Thought is the wages 
For which I sell days, 
Will gladly sell ages 



THE POET, 271 

And willing grow old 

Deaf and dumb and blind and cold, 

Melting matter into dreams, 

Panoramas which I saw 

And whatever glows or seems 

Into substance, into Lawc 



Try the might the Muse affords 
And the balm of thoughtful words 
Bring music to the desolate ; 
Hang roses on the stony fate. 



For Fancy's gift 

Can mountains lift ; 

The Muse can knit 

What is past, what is done, 

With the web that 's just begun % 

Making free with time and size, 

Dwindles here, there magnifies, 

Swells a rain-drop to a tun; 

So to repeat 

No word or feat 

Crowds in a day the sum of ages, 

And blushing Love outwits the sages 



But over all his crowning grace, 
Wherefor thanks God his daily praise, 



272 THE POET, 

Is the purging of his eye 

To see the people of the sky: 

From blue mount and headland dim 

Friendly hands stretch forth to him, 

Him they beckon, him advise 

Of heavenlier prosperities 

And a more excelling grace 

And a truer bosom-giow 

Than the wine-fed feasters knowo 

They turn his heart from lovely maids. 

And make the darlings of the earth 

Swainish, coarse and nothing worth: 

Teach him gladly to postpone 

Pleasures to another stage 

Beyond the scope of human age, 

Freely as task at eve undone 

Waits unblamed to-morrow's sun. 



Let me go where'er I will 

I hear a sky-born music still: 

It sounds from all things old, 

It sounds from all things young, 

From all that's fair, from all that's foulj 

Peals out a cheerful song. 

It is not only in the rose. 

It is not only in the bird, 

Not only where the rainbow glows, 

Nor in the song of woman heard, 

But in the darkest, meanest things 

There alway, alway something sings. 



THE POET. 273 

■Tis not in the high stars alone, 
Nor in the cups of budding flowers, 
Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, 
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, 
But in the mud and scum of things 
There alway, alway something sings. 



By thoughts I lead 

Bards to say what nations need; 

What imports, what irks and what behooveSj, 

Framed afar as Fates and Loves. 

Those who lived with him became 

Poets, for the air was fame.* 



Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, 
Sit still and Truth is near : 

Suddenly it will uplift 

Your eyelids to the sphere : 

Wait a little, you shall see 

The portraiture of things to be. 



The rules to men made evident 
By Him who built the day, 

The columns of the firmament 
Not firmer based than they. 
18 



274 THE POET. 



I FRAMED his tongue to music, 
I armed his hand with skill, 

I moulded his face to beauty 

And his heart the throne of Will* 



For every God 

Obeys the hjnnn, obeys the ode. 



For art, f©r music over-thrilled, 

The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled. 



Hold of the Maker, not the Made; 
Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad. 



That book is good 

Which puts me in a working mood. 

Unless to Thought is added Will, 

Apollo is an imbecile. 
What parts, what gems, what colors shine, - 
Ah, but I miss the grand design. 



THE POET. 275 



Like vaulters in a circus round 

Who leap from horse to horse, but never touch the 
ground. 



Fob Genius made his cabin wide, 
And Love led Gods therein to bide. 



The atom displaces all atoms beside. 

And Genius unspheres all souls that abide. 



To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem 
The vice of Japhet by the thought of Shem. 



Forbore the ant-hiU, shunned to tread. 
In mercy, on one little head. 



I have no brothers and no peers, 
And the dearest interferes: 
When I would spend a lonely day, 
Sun and moon are in my way. 



276 THE POET. 



The brook sings on, but sings in vain 
Wanting the echo in my brain. 



Oisr bravely through the sunshine and the showers I 
Time hath his work to do and we have ours. 



He planted where the deluge ploughed, 
His hired hands were wind and cloud 5 
His eyes detect the Gods concealed 
In the hummock of the field. 



For what need I of book or priest, 
Or sibyl from the mummied East, 
When every star is Bethlehem star? 
I count as many as there are 
Cinquefoils or violets in the grass, 
So many saints and saviours, 
So many high behaviors 
Salute the bard who is alive 
And only sees what he doth give. 



Thou shalt not try 

To plant thy shrivelled pedantry 

On the shoulders of the sky. 



THE POET. 277 



Ah, not to me those dreams belong! 
A better voice peals through my song. 



Teach me your mood, patient stars 1 
Who climb each night the ancient sky, 

Leaving on space no shade, no scars, 
No trace of age, no fear to die. 



The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded, 
A bolder foot is still rewarded. 



His instant thought a poet spoke, 
And filled the age his fame; 
An inch of ground the lightning strook 
But lit the sky with flame. 



If bright the sun, he tarries, 
All day his song is heard ; 

And when he goes he carries 
No more baggage than a bird. 



The Asmodean feat is mine, 
To spin my sand-heap into twine. 



2T8 NATURE, 



Slighted Minerva's learned tongue, 
But leaped with joy when on the wind 
The shell of Clio rung. 



Best boon of life is presence of a Muse 
That does not wish to wander, comes by stealthy 
Divulging to the heart she sets on flame 
No popular tale or toy, no cheap renown. 
"When the wings grow that draw the gazing eye 
Oft-times poor Genius fluttering near the earth 
Is wrecked upon the turrets of the town; 
But Hfted till he meets the steadfast gales 
Calm blowing from the everlasting West. 



FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE. 



NATURE. 

Daily the bending skies solicit man, 
The seasons chariot him from this exile, 
The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing wheels. 
The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, 
Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights 
Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home. 



NATURE. 279 



For Nature, true and like 'in every place, 

Will hint her secret in a garden patch, 

Or in lone corners of a doleful heath, 

As in the Andes watched by fleets at sea, 

Or the sky-piercing horns of Himmaleh ; 

And, when I would recall the scenes I dreamed 

On Adirondac steeps, I know 

Small need have I of Turner or Daguerre, 

Assured to find the token once again 

In silver lakes that unexhausted gleam 

And peaceful woods beside my cottage door. 



The patient Pan, 

Drunken with nectar. 

Sleeps or feigns slumber 

Drowsily humming 

Music to the march of time. 

This poor tooting, creaking cricket, 

Pan, half asleep, rolling over 

His great body in the grass. 

Tooting, creaking, 

Feigns to sleep, sleeping never; 

'T is his manner, 

Well he knows his own affair. 

Piling mountain chains of phlegm 

On the nervous brain of man, 

As he holds down central fires 

Under Alps and Andes cold; 



280 NATURE. 

Haply else we could not live, 
Life would be too wild an ode. 



What all the books of ages paint, I have. 

What prayers and dreams of youthful genius feign, 

I daily dwell in, and am not so blind 

But I can see the elastic tent of day 

Belike has wider hospitality 

Than my few needs exhaust, and bids me read 

The quaint devices on its mornings gay. 

Yet Nature will not be in full possessed. 

And they who truliest love her, heralds are 

And harbingers of a majestic race, 

Who, having more absorbed, more largely yield. 

And walk on earth as the sun walks in the sphere. 



But never yet the man was found 

Who could the mystery expound, 

Though Adam, born when oaks were young, 

Endured, the Bible says, as long ; 

But when at last the patriarch died 

The Gordian noose was still untied. 

He left, though goodly centuries old, 

Meek Nature's secret still untold. 



Atom from atom yawns as far 

As moon from earth, or star from staro 



NATURE. 281 



The sun athwart the cloud thought it no sin 
To use my land to put his rainbows in. 



For joy and beauty planted it, 
With faerie gardens cheered, 

And boding Fancy haunted it 
With men and women wierd. 



What central flowing forces, say, 
Make up thy splendor, matchless day? 



Day by day for her darlings to her much she added 

more; 
In her hundred-gated Thebes every chamber was a 

door, 
A door to something grander, — loftier walls, and 

vaster floor. 



Samson stark at Dagon's knee. 
Gropes for columns strong as he; 
Wlien his ringlets grew and curled, 
Groped for axle of the world. 



282 NATURE. 



She paints with white and red the moors 
To draw the nations out of doors. 



A SCORE of airy miles will smooth 
Rough Monadnoc to a gem. 



The mountain utters the same sense 
Unchanged in its intelligence, 
For ages sheds its walnut leaves, 
One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. 



THE EARTH. 



Our eyeless bark sails free 
Though with boom and spar 

Andes, Alp or Himmalee, 
Strikes never moon or star. 



See yonder leafless trees against the sky, 
How they diffuse themselves into the air, 
And, ever subdividing, separate 
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs, 
As if they loved the element, and hasted 
To dissipate their being into it. 



NATURE. 283 



Pakks and ponds are good by day; 

I do not delight 

In black acres of the night, 

Nor my unseasoned step disturbs 

The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs. 



The low December vault in June be lifted high, 
And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormou?: 
sky. 



Solar insect on the wing 
In the garden murmuring, 
Soothing with thy summer horn 
Swains by winter pinched and worn. 



Darlings of children and of bard, 
Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, 
All of worth and beauty set 
Gems in Nature's cabinet; 
These the fables she esteems 
Reality most like to dreams. 
Welcome back, yon little nations. 
Far-travelled in the south plantations | 
Bring your music and rhythmic flighty 
Your colors for our eyes* delight; 



284 NATURE. 

Freely nestle in our roof, 
Weave your chamber weatherproof? 
And your enchanting manners bring 
And your autumnal gathering. 
Exchange in conclave general 
Greetings kind to each and all. 
Conscious each of duty done 
And unstained as the sun. 



The water understands 

Civilization well; 

It wets my foot, but prettily 

It chiUs my life, but wittily, 

It is not disconcerted. 

It is not broken-hearted : 

Well used, it decketh joy, 

Adorneth, doubleth joy : 

111 used, it will destroy, 

In perfect time and measure 

With a face of golden pleasure 

Elegantly destroy. 



All day the waves assailed the rockj 
I heard no church-bell chime, 

The sea-beat scorns the minster clock 
And breaks the glass of Time. 



NATURE. 285 



Would you know what joy is hid 

In our green Musketaquid, 

And for travelled eyes what charms 

Draw us to these meadow farms, 

Come and I will show you all 

Makes each day a festival. 

Stand upon this pasture hill, 

Face the eastern star until 

The slow eye of heaven shall show 

The world above, the world below. 

Behold the miracle! 

Thou sawst but now the twilight sad 

And stood beneath the firmament, 

A watchman in a dark gray tent, 

Waiting till God create the earth, — 

Behold the new majestic birth! 

The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool, 

Steeped in the light are beautiful. 

What majestic stillness broods 

Over these colored solitudes. 

Sleeps the vast East in pleased peace, 

Up the far mountain waUs the streams increase 

Inundating the heaven 

With spouting streams and waves of light 

Which round the floating isles unite: — 

See the world below 

Baptized with the pure element, 



286 NATURE, 

A clear and glorious firmament 
Touched with life by every heamo 
I share the good with every flower^ 
I drink the nectar of the hour : — 
This is not the ancient earth 
Whereof old chronicles relate 
The tragic tales of crime and fate ; 
But rather, like its beads of dew 
And dew-bent violets, fresh and new, 
An exhalation of the time. 

* # * # * # * 



He lives not who can refuse me; 
All my force saith, Come and use me* 
A gleam of sun, a little rain, 
And all is green again. 



Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants. 
Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell, 
As if on such stern forms and haunts 
A wintry storm more fitly fell. 



Illusions like the tints of pearl, 
Or changing colors of the sky. 

Or ribbons of a dancing girl 

That mend her beauty to the eye. 



LIFE. 287 



The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth 
And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon 
To shave the sunshine that so spicy is. 



Put in, drive home the sightless wedgei 
And split to flakes the crystal ledges. 



Nature centres into balls, 
And her proud ephemerals. 
Fast to surface and outside, 
Scan the profile of the sphere ; 
Knew they what that signified, 
A new genesis were here. 



But Nature whistled with all her winds? 
Did as she pleased and went her way. 



LIFE. 

A TRAEsr of gay and clouded days 
Dappled with joy and grief and praise, 
Beauty to fire us, saints to savCj 
Escort us to a little grave. 



288 LIFE. 



No fate, save by the victim's fault, is loWj 
For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, 
So guilt not traverses his tender will. 



Around the man who seeks a noble endj 
Not angels but divinities attend. 



From high to higher forces 
The scale of power uprears, 

The heroes on their horses, 
The gods upon their spheres. 



This passing moment is an edifice m 

Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuiM» 9 



EooMY Eternity- 
Casts her schemes rarely, 
And an seen allows 
For each quality and part 
Of the multitudinous 
And many-chambered heart. 



LIFE. 289 



The beggar begs by God's command. 
And gifts awake when givers sleep, 

Swords cannot cut the giving hand 
Nor stab the love that orphans keepo 



East to match what others do, 

Perform the feat as well as they; 

Hard to out-do the brave, the true. 

And find a loftier way : 

The school decays, the learning spoils 

Because of the sons of wine; 

How snatch the stripling from their toils?- 

Yet can one ray of truth divine 

The blaze of reveller's feasts outshine. 



In the chamber, on the stairs. 

Lurking dumb, 

Go and come 
Lemurs and Lars. 



Of all wit's uses the main one 
Is to live well with who has none. 

VOL. IX. 19 



290 LIFE. 



The tongue is prone to lose the way. 
Not so the pen, for in a letter 

We have not better things to say, 
But surely say them better. 



She walked in flowers around my field 
As June herself around the sphere. 



Such another peerless queen 
Only could her mirror show. 



I BEAR in youth the sad infirmities 

That use to undo the limb and sense of age; 

It hath pleased Heaven to break the dream ot bliss 

Which lit my onward way with bright presage, 

And my unserviceable limbs forego 

The sweet delight I found in fields and farms. 

On windy hills, whose tops with morning glow, 

And lakes, smooth mirrors of Aurora's charms. 

Yet I think on them in the silent night, 

Still breaks that morn, though dim, to Memory's 

eye, 
And the firm soul does the pale train defy 
Of grim Disease, that would her peace affright. 



LIFE. 291 

Please God, I'll wrap me in mine innocence 
And bid each awful Muse drive the damned harpies 
hence. 
Cambridge, 1827. 



Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly 

Serve that low whisper thou hast served ; for know, 

God hath a select family of sons 

Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone, 

Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one 

By constant service to that inward law, 

Is weaving the sublime proportions 

Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength, 

The riches of a spotless memory, 

The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got 

By searching of a clear and loving eye 

That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts, 

And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day 

To seal the marriage of these minds with thine, 

Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be 

The salt of all the elements, world of the world. 



Friekds to me are frozen wine; 

I wait the sun on them should shine. 



Day by day returns 
The everlasting sun. 



292 LIFE. 



Replenishing material urns 

With God's unspared donation | 

But the day of day, 

The orb within the mind, 

Creating fair and good alway, 
Shines not as once it shined. 



Vast the realm of Being is. 
In the waste one nook is his 5 
Whatsoever hap befalls 
In his vision's narrow walls 
He is here to testify. 



f831. 



Leave me, Fear, thy throbs are base, 

Trembling for the body's sake: 
Come, Love ! who dost the spirit raise 

Because for others thou dost wake. 

O it is beautiful in death 
To hide the shame of human nature's en(? 
In sweet and wary serving of a friend. 
Love is true glory's field where the last breath 

Expires in troops of honorable cares. 
The wound of Fate the hero cannot feel 
Smit with the heavenlier smart of social zeaL 

It draws immortal day 

In soot and ashes of our clay. 
It is the virtue that enchants it. 
It is the face of God that haunts it. 
1831. 



i 



LIFE. 29S 



Has God on thee conferred 

A bodily presence mean ,as Paul's^ 

Yet made thee bearer of a word 

Which sleepy nations as with trumpet calls ? 

O noble heart, accept 
With equal thanks the talent and disgrace; 

The marble town unwept 
Nourish thy virtue in a private place. 

Think not that unattended 
By heavenly powers thou steal'st to Solitude, 

Nor yet on earth all unbefriended. 



1831. 



You shall not love me for what daily spends ; 
You shall not know me in the noisy street, 
Where I, as others, follow petty ends; 
Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet; 
Nor when I 'm jaded, sick, anxious, or mean. 
But love me then and only, when you know 
Me for the channel of the rivers of God 
From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow. 



To and fro the Genius flies, 
A light which plays and hovers 
Over the maiden's head 

And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. 



294 LIFE. 

Of her faults I take no note, 

Fault and folly are not mine; 
Conies the Genius, — all 's forgot, 
Replunged again into that upper sphere 
He scatters wide and wild its lustres heree 



Love 

Asks nought his brother cannot give ; 

Asks nothing, but does all receive. 

Love calls not to his aid events ; 

He to his wants can well suffice : 

Asks not of others soft consents. 

Nor kind occasion without eyes; 

Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate, 

Nor heeds Condition's iron walls, — 

"Where he goes, goes before him Fate; 

Whom he uniteth, God installs ; 

Instant and perfect his access 

To the dear object of his thought, 

Though foes and land and seas between 

Himself and his love intervene. 



Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower, 

Go match thee with thy seeming peers ; 

I will wait Heaven's perfect ho'ir 
Through the innumerable years. 



Tell men what they knew before; 
Paint the prospect from their door. 



LIFE. 295 



Him strong Genius urged to roam, 
Stronger Custom brought him home. 



Thou shalt make thy house 

The temple of a nation's vows. 

Spirits of a higher strain 

Who sought thee once shall seek agai^ 

I detected many a god 

Forth already on the road, 

Ancestors of beauty come 

In thy breast to make a home. 



As the drop feeds its fated flower, 

As finds its Alp the snowy shower, 

Child of the omnific Need, 

Hurled into life to do a deed, 

Man drinks the water, drinks the light. 



Ever the Rock of Ages melts 

Into the mineral air. 
To be the quarry whence to build 

Thought and its mansions fair. 



296 LIFE. 



Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken 
Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent, 
A thing that takes no more root in the world 
Than doth the traveller's shadow on the rock. 



The archangel Hope 

Looks to the* azure cope, 

Waits through dark ages for the morn, 

Defeated day by day, but unto victory born. 



But if thou do thy best, 

Without remission, without rest, 

And invite the sun-beam, 

And abhor to feign or seem 

Even to those who thee should love 

And thy behavior approve ; 

If thou go in thine own likeness, 

Be it health, or be it sickness; 

If thou go as thy father's son, 

If thou wear no mask or lie. 

Dealing purely and nakedly, — 

=J^ * « * * # * 



From the stores of eldest matter, 
The deep-eyed flame, obedient water, 



LIFE. 297 

Transparent air, all-feeding earth, 
He took the flower of all their worth, 
And, best with best in sweet consent. 
Combined a new temperament. 



Ascending thorough just degrees 
To a consummate holiness, 
As angel blind to trespass done. 
And bleaching all souls like the sun. 



The bard and mystic held me for their owii, 

I filled the dream of sad; poetic maids, 

I took the friendly noble by the hand, 

I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, 

The brother of the fisher, porter, swain. 

And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld 

The service done to me as done to them. 



With the key of the secret he marches faster, 

From strength to strength, and for night brings dayj 

While classes or tribes, too weak to master 
The flowing conditions of life, give way. 



Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship 

Of minds that each can stand against the world 

By its own meek and incorruptible will? 



298 THE BOHEMIAN HYMN. 



That each should in his house abidej 
Therefore was the world so wide. 



If curses be the wage of love, 

Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jovej 

Not to be named : 

It is clear 
Why the gods will not appear; 

They are ashamed. 



When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, 
And the rash-leaping thunderbolt feU short. 



THE BOHEMIAN HYMN. 

In" many forms we try 

To utter God's infinity. 

But the boundless hath no form, 

And the Universal Friend 

Doth as far transcend 

An ansrel as a worm. 



The great Idea baffles wit, 
Language falters under it, 



PRA YER. — GRA CE. 299 

It leaves the learned in the lurch ; 
Nor art, nor power, nor toil can find 
The measure of the eternal Mind, 
Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church. 



PRAYER. 

When success exalts thy lot 
God for thy virtue lays a plot. 
And all thy life is for thy own, 
Then for mankind's instruction shown; 
And though thy knees were never bent, 
To Heaven thy hourly prayers are sent, 
And whether formed for good or ill 
Are registered and answered still. 



GRACE. 

How much, preventing God, how much I owe 
To the defences thou hast round me set ; 
Example, custom, fear, occasion slow, — 
These scorned bondmen were my parapet. 
I dare not peep over this parapet 
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below, 
The depths of sin to which I had descended, 
Had not these me against myself defended. 



300 EROS. — NAPLES. 



EROS. 

They put their finger on their lip. 

The Powers above: 
The seas their islands clip, 
The moons in ocean dip, 
They love, but name not love. 



WRITTEN IN NAPLES, MARCH, 1833. 

We are what we are made ; each following day 

Is the Creator of our human mould 

Not less than was the first ; the all-wise God 

Gilds a few points in every several life, 

And as each flower upon the fresh hill-side, 

And every colored petal of each flower, 

Is sketched and dyed each with a new design, 

Its. spot of purple, and its streak of brown. 

So each man's life shall have its proper lights, 

And a few joys, a few peculiar charms, 

For him round — in the melancholy hours 

And reconcile him to the common days. 

Not many men see beauty in the fogs 

Of close low pine-woods in a river town; 

Yet unto me not morn's magnificence. 

Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve, 

Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls 

Of rich men blazing hospitable light, 

Nor wit, nor eloquence, — no, nor even the song 



ROME. BOl 

Of any woman that is now alive, — 
Hath such a soul, such divine influence, 
Such resurrection of the happy past, 
As is to me when I behold the morn 
Ope in such low moist road-side, and beneath 
Peep the blue violets out of the black loam. 
Pathetic silent poets that sing to me 
Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife. 



WRITTEN AT ROME, 1833. 

Alone in Rome. Why, Rome is lonely too; — 

Besides, you need not be alone ; the soul 

Shall have society of its own rank. 

Be great, be true, and all the Scipios, 

The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome 

Shall flock to you and tarry by your side. 

And comfort you with their high company. 

Virtue alone is sweet society. 

It keeps the key to all heroic hearts. 

And opens you a welcome in them all. 

You must be like them if you desire them, 

Scorn trifles and embrace a better aim 

Than wine or sleep or praise ; 

Hunt knowledge as the lover wooes a maid, 

And ever in the strife of your own thoughts 

Obey the nobler impulse ; that is Rome : 

That shall command a senate to your side ; 

For there is no might in the universe 

That can contend with love. It reigns forever. 



802 PETER'S FIELD. 

Wait then, sad friend, wait in majestic peace 

The hour of heaven. Generously trust 

Thy fortune's web to the beneficent hand 

That; until now has put his world in fee 

To thee. He watches for thee still. His love 

Broods over thee, and as God lives in heaven, 

However long thou walkest solitary. 

The hour of heaven shall come, the man appear. 



PETER'S FIELD.i 

[Knows he who tills this lonely field 

To reap its scanty corn 
What mystic fruit his acres yield 

At midnight and at morn?] 

That field by spirits bad and good, 
By Hell and Heaven is haunted, 

And every rood in the hemlock wood 
I know is ground enchanted. 

[In the long sunny afternoon 

The plain was full of ghosts, 
I wandered up, I wandered down 

Beset by pensive hosts.] 

1 This poem on the memories and associations of the field hj the 
Concord Eiver where Mr. Emerson and his brothers walked in their 
youth, is probably of earlier date than The Dirge, with which it has 
two verses in common. 



PETER'S FIELD. 303 

For in those lonely grounds the sun 

Shines not as on the town, 
In nearer arcs his journeys run, 

And nearer stoops the moon. 

There in a moment I have seen 

The buried Past arise ; 
The fields of Thessaly grew green. 

Old gods forsook the skies. 

I cannot publish in my rhyme 

What pranks the greenwood played | 

It was the Carnival of time, 
And Ages went or stayed. 

To me that spectral nook appeared 

The mustering Day of Doom, 
And round me swarmed in shadowy troop 

Things past and things to come. 

The darkness haunteth me elsewhere; 

There I am full of light; 
In every whispering leaf I hear 

More sense than sages write. 

Underwoods were full of pleasance, 

All to each in kindness bend. 
And every flower made obeisance 

As a man unto his friend. 

Far seen the river glides below 

Tossing one sparkle to the eyes. 
I catch thy meaning, wizard wave; 

The River of my Life replies. 



S04 THE WALK,— MAY MORNING, 



THE WALK. 

A QUEEN rejoices in her peers, 
And wary Nature knows her own 
By court and city, dale and down, 
And like a lover volunteers, 
And to her son will treasures more 
And more to purpose freely pour 
In one wood walk, than learned men 
Can find with glass in ten times ten. 



MAY MORNINa 

"Who saw the hid beginnings 
When Chaos and Order strove, 

Or who can date the morning 
The purple flaming of love? 

I saw the hid beginnings 

When Chaos and Order strove, 

And I can date the morning prime 
And purple flame of love. 

Song breathed from all the forest, 

The total air was fame; 
It seemed the world was all torches 

That suddenly caught the flame. 



THE MIRACLE. 305 

Is there never a retroscope mirror 
In the realms and corners of space 

That can give us a glimpse of the battle 
And the soldiers face to face? 

Sit here on the basalt ranges 

Where twisted hills betray 
The seat of the world-old Forces 

Who wrestled here on a day. 



When the purple flame shoots up, 
And Love ascends his throne, 

I cannot hear your songs, O birds. 
For the witchery of my own. 

And every human heart 
Still keeps that golden day 

And rings the bells of jubilee 
On its own First of May. 



THE MIRACLE. 

1 HAVE trod this path a hundred times 
With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes. 
I know each nest and web-worm's tent, 
The fox-hole which the woodchucks Tentj 
Maple and oak, the old Divan 
Self-planted twice, like the banian. 



808 TEE MIRACLE. 

I know not why I came again 
Unless to learn it ten times ten. 
To read the sense the woods impart 
You must bring the throbbing heart. 
Love is aye the counterforce, — 
Terror and Hope and wild Remorse, 
Newest knowledge, fiery thought, 
Or Duty to grand purpose wrought.. 
Wandering yester morn the brake, 
I reached this heath beside the lake, 
And oh, the wonder of the power, 
The deeper secret of the hour! 
Nature, the supplement of man. 
His hidden sense interpret can ; — 
What friend to friend cannot convey 
Shall the dumb bird instructed say. 
Passing yonder oak, I heard 
Sharp accents of my woodland bird ; 
I watched the singer with delight, — 
But mark what changed my joy to fright, — = 
When that bird sang, I gave the theme. 
That wood-bird sang my last night's dream, 
A brown wren was the Daniel 
That pierced my trance its drift to teU, 
Knew my quarrel, how and why. 
Published it to lake and sky. 
Told every word and syllable 
In his flippant chirping babble, 
All my wrath and all my shames, 
Nay, God is witness, gave the names.. 



THE WATERFALL.— WALDEN. 307 



THE WATERFALL. 

A PATCH of meadow upland 

Reached by a mile of road, 
Soothed by the voice of waters, 

With birds and flowers bestowed. 

Hither I come for strength 

Which well it can supply, 
For Love draws might from terrene force 

And potencies of sky. 

The tremulous battery Earth 
Responds to the touch of man; 

It thrills to the antipodes, 
From Boston to Japan. 



WALDEN.i 

In my garden three ways meet, 

Thrice the spot is blest ; 
Hermit thrush comes there to build, 

Carrier doves to nest. 

There broad-armed oaks, the copses' maze, 
The cold sea-wind detain ; 

1 This poem represents the early form of My Garden, which, im 
years, grew from this beginning. 



308 WALDEN. 

Here sultry Summer over-stays 
When Autumn- chills the plain, 

SeK-sown my stately garden grows ; 

The winds and wind-blown seed, 
Cold April rain and colder snows 

My hedges plant and feed. 

From mountains far and valleys near 

The harvests sown to-day 
Thrive in all weathers without fear, — = 

Wild planters, plant away! 

In cities high the careful crowds 
Of woe-worn mortals darkling go, 

But in these sunny solitudes 
My quiet roses blow. 

Methought the sky looked scornful down 

On all was base in man. 
And airy tongues did taunt the town, 

" Achieve our peace who can ! " 

What need I holier dew 

Than Walden's haunted wave, 

Distilled from heaven's alembic blue, 
Steeped in each forest cave? 

If Thought unlock her mysteries, 
If Friendship on me smile, 

I walk in marble galleries, 
I talk with kings the while. 



PAN. 309 

And chiefest thou, whom Genius loved, 

Daughter of sounding seas, 
Whom Nature pampered in these groves 

And lavished all to please, — 

What wealth of mornings in her year, 

What planets in her sky ! 
She chose her best thy heart to cheer. 

Thy beauty to supply. 

Now younger pilgrims find the stream, 

The willows and the vine. 
But aye to me the happiest seem 

To draw the dregs of wine. 



PAN. 

WHAT are heroes, prophets, men, 

But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow 

A momentary music. Being's tide 

Swells hitherward, and myriads of forms 

Live, robed with beauty, painted by the sun; 

Their dust, pervaded by the nerves of God, 

Throbs with an overmastering energy 

Knowing and doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie 

White hollow shells upon the desert shore. 

But not the less the eternal wave rolls on 

To animate new millions, and exhale 

Races and planets, its enchanted foam. 



810 THE SOUTH WIND. 



MONADNOC FROM AFAR. 

Dakk flower of Cheshire garden, 

Red evening duly dyes 
Thy sombre head with rosy hues 

To fix far-gazing eyes. 
"Well the Planter knew how strongly 

Works thy form on human thought 5 
I muse what secret purpose had he 

To draw all fancies to this spot. 



THE SOUTH WIND. 

Sudden gusts came full of meaning, 
All too much to him they said, 

Oh, south winds have long memories, 
Of that be none afraid. 

I cannot tell rude listeners 

Half the tell-tale south wind said, — 
'T would bring the blushes of yon maplei 

To a man and to a maid. 



FAME. 311 



FAME. 



Ah Fate, cannot a man 

Be wise without a beard ? 
East, West, from Beer to Dan, 

Say, was it never heard 
That wisdom might in youth be gotten, 
Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten ? 

He pays too high a price 

For knowledge and for fame 
Who sells his sinews to be wise, 

His teeth and bones to buy a name, 
And crawls through life a paralytic 
To earn the praise of bard and critic. 

Were it not better done. 

To dine and sleep through forty years; 
Be loved by few ; be feared by none ; 

Laugh life away ; have wine for tears ; 
And take the mortal leap undaunted. 
Content that all we asked was granted? 

But Fate will not permit 

The seed of gods to die. 
Nor suffer sense to win from wit 

Its guerdon in the sky. 
Nor let us hide, whate'er our pleasure. 
The world's light underneath a measure. 

Go then, sad youth, and shine. 
Go, sacrifice to Fame; 



812 WEBSTER. 

Put youth, joy, health, upon the shrine. 

And life to fan the flame ; 
Being for Seeming bravely barter, 
And die to Fame a happy martyr. 



WEBSTER. 

FROM THE PHI BETA KAPPA POEM, 1834. 

Ill fits the abstemious Muse a crown to weave 

For living brows ; ill fits them to receive : 

And yet, if virtue abrogate the law, 

One portrait, — fact or fancy — we may draw; 

A form which Nature cast in the heroic mould 

Of them who rescued liberty of old; 

He, when the rising storm of party roared, 

Brought his great forehead to the council board, 

There, while hot heads perplexed with fears the state^ 

Calm as the morn the manly patriot sate ; 

Seemed, when at last his clarion accents broke, 

As if the conscience of the country spoke. 

Not on its base Monadnoc surer stood. 

Than he to common sense and common good: 

No mimic; from his breast his counsel drew. 

Believed the eloquent was aye the true ; 

He bridged the gulf from th' alway good and wise 

To that within the vision of small eyes. 

Self-centred; when he launched the genuine word 

It shook or captivated all who heard. 

Ran from his mouth to mountains and the sea, 

And burned in noble hearts proverb and prophecy. 



I 



THE ENCHANTER. 313 



VfRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE. 

Six thankful weeks, — and let it be 
A meter of prosperity, — 
In my coat I bore this book, 
And seldom therein could I look, 
For I had too much to think. 
Heaven and earth to eat and drink. 
Is he hapless who can spare 
In his plenty things so rare? 



THE ENCHANTER. 

In the deep heart of man a poet dwells 

Who all the day of life his summer story tells : 

Scatters on every eye dust of his spells, 

Scent, form and color : to the flowers and shells 

Wins the believing child with wondrous tales; 

Touches a cheek with colors of romance, 

And crowds a history into a glance ; 

Gives beauty to the lake and fountain. 

Spies over-sea the fires of the mountain ; 

When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he that singSj 

And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings. 

The little Shakspeare in the maiden's heart 

Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart; 

Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed 

And gives persuasion to a gentle deed. 



314 PHILOSOPHER. — LIMITS. 



PHILOSOPHER. 

Philosophers are lined with eyes within, 
And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. 
In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade ; 
Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheeks 
He feels it, introverts his learned eye 
To catch the unconscious heart in the very act* 
His mother died, — the only friend he had, — 
Some tears escaped, but his philosophy 
Couched like a cat sat watching close behind 
And throttled all his passion. Is't not like 
That devil-spider that devours her mate 
Scarce freed from her embraces? 



LIMITS. 

Who knows this or that? 

Hark in the wall to the rat: 

Since the world was, he has gnawed 5 

Of his wisdom, of his fraud 

"What dost thou know? 

In the wretched little beast 

Is life and heart. 

Child and parent. 

Not without relation 

To fruitful field and sun and moon. 

What art thou? His wicked eye 

Is cruel to thy cruelty. 



INSCRIPTION. — THE EXILE. 315 

INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF 
THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR. 

Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless ; return as well ; 
So did our sons; Heaven met them as they fell. 



THE EXILE. 

(after TALLESSINo) 

The heavy blue chain 
Of the boundless main 
Didst thou, just man, endure. 



I HAVE an arrow that will find its mark, 
A mastiff that will bite without a bark. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES, 



A dull uncertain brain, 269. 

" A new commandment," said the smiling Muse, 244. 

A patch of meadow upland, 307. 

A queen rejoices in her peers, 304. 

A ruddy drop of manly blood, 232. 

A score of airy miles will smooth, 282. 

A train of gay and clouded days, 287. 

Ah Fate, cannot a man, 311. 

Ah, not to me those dreams belong ! 277. 

All day the waves assailed the rock, 284. 

Alone in Rome. Why, Rome is lonely too, 301. 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 42. 

Around the man who seeks a noble end, 288. 

As sings the pine-tree in the wind, 244. 

As sunbeams stream through liberal space, 48. 

As the drop feeds its fated flower, 295. 

Ascending thorough just degrees, 297. 

Askest, ' How long thou shalt stay ? ' 20. 

Atom from atom yawns as far, 280. 

Be of good cheer, brave spirit ; steadfastly, 291, 

Because I was content with these poor fields, 124. „ 

Best boon of life is presence of a Muse, 278. 

Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jest, 246. 

Blooms the laurel which belongs, 181. 

Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we now first behold, 24L 

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew. 111. 

Bulkeley, Himt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Fhnt, 35. 

Burly, dozing humble-bee, 39. 

But God said, 101. 

But if thou do thy best, 296. 

But Nature whistled with all her winds, 287. 

But never yet the man was found, 280. 

But over all his crowning grace, 271. 

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave, 120. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 139. 

By thoughts 1 lead, 273. 

Can rules or tutors educate, 232. 
Cast the bantling on the rocks, 242. 

Daily the bending skies solicit man, 278. 

Dark flower of Cheshire garden, 310. 

Darlings of children and of bard, 283. 

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, 143. 

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, 196. 

Day by day for her darlings to her much she added more, 281. 

Day by day returns, 291. 

Day ! hast thou two faces, 197. 



318 INDEX OF FIRST LINES, 

Dearest, where thy shadow falls, 247. 
Deep in the man sits fast his fate, 171. 

Each spot where tulips prank their state, 247. 
Each the herald is who wrote, 75. 
Easy to match what others do, 289. 
Ere he was born, the stars of fate, 241. 
Ever the Poet from the land, 239. 
Ever the Rock of Ages melts, 295. 
Every day brings a ship, 188. 
Every thought is public, 238. 

Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless ; return as well, 315. 

Farewell, ye lofty spires, 222. 

For art, for music over-thrilled, 274. 

For every God, 274, 

For Fancy's gift, 271. 

For Genius made his cabin wide, 275. 

For joy and beauty planted it, 281. 

For Nature, true and like in every place, 279. 

For thought, and not praise, 270. 

For what need I of book or priest, 276. 

Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread, 275. 

Freedom all winged expands, 179. 

Friends to me are frozen wine, 291. 

From fall to spring, the russet acorn, 119. 

From high to higher forces, 288. 

From the stores of eldest matter, 296. 

From thy worth and weight the stars gravitate, 249. 

Oive all to love, 84. 

Give me truths, 122. 

Give to barrows, trays and pans, 235. 

Go if chou wilt, ambrosial flower, 294, 

Go thou to thy learned task, 239. 

Gold and iron are good, 230. 

Good-bye, proud world ! I 'm going home, 37. 

Grace, Beauty and Caprice?234, 

Hark what, now loud, now low, the pining flute complains, 248. 

Has God on thee conferred, 293. 

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ? 78. 

He lives not who can refuse me, 286. 

He planted where the deluge ploughed, 276. 

He took the color of his vest, 240. 

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, 248. 

He who has no hands, 238, 

Her passions the shy violet, 243, 

Her planted eye to-day controls, 241, 

High was her heart, and yet was well inclined, 238. 

Him strong Genius urged to roam, 295. 

His instant thought a poet spoke, 277. 

Hold of the Maker, not the Made, 274. 

How much, preventing God, how much I owe, 299. 

I, Alphonso, live and learn, 27. 

I am not wiser for my apre, 242. 

I am the Muse who sung alway, 189. 

I bear in youth the s&d infirmities, 290. 

I cannot spare water or wine, 30. 

I do not count the hours I spend, 214. 

I framed his tongue to music, 274. 

I grieve that better souls than mine, 270. 

I have an arrow that will find its mark, 315. 

I have no brothers and no peers, 276. . 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 319 



I have trod this path a hundred times, 305. 

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea, 207. 

I hung my verses in the wind, 189. 

I like a church ; I like a cowl, 15. 

I mourn upon this battle-field, 224. 

I reached the middle of the mount, 127. 

I said to heaven that glowed above, 246. 

I see all human wits, 243. 

I serve you not, if you I follow, 76. 

If bright the sun, he tarries, 277. 

If curses be the wage of love, 298. 

If I could put my woods in song, 197. 

If my darling should depart, 246. 

If the red slayer think he slays, 170. 

Ill fits the abstemious Muse a crown to weave, 312. 

Illusions like the tints of pearl, 286. 

In an age of fops and toys, 180. 

In Farsistan the violet spreads, 245. 

In many forms we try, 298. 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, 39. 

In my garden three ways meet, 307. 

In the chamber, on the stairs, 289. 

In the deep heart of man a poet dwells, 313. 

It fell in the ancient periods, 21. 

It is time to be old, 216. 

Knows he who tills this lonely field, 127, 302. 

Leave me, Fear, thy throbs are base, 292. 

Let me go where'er I will, 272. 

Like vaulters in a circus round, 275. 

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, 14. 

Long I followed happy guides, 79. 

Love asks nought his brother cannot give, 294. 

Love on his errand bound to go, 242. 

Low and mournful be the strain, 178. 

Man was made of social earth, 97. 
May be true what I had heard, 41. 
Mine are the night and morning, 209. 
Mine and yours, 36. 
Mortal mixed of middle clay, 33. 

Nature centres into balls, 287. 
Never did sculptor's dream unfold, 244. 
Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall, 242. 
No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low, 288. 
Not in their houses stand the stars, 249. 

O fair and stately maid, whose eyes, 87. 

O pity that I pause ! 187. 

O tenderly the haughty day, 173. 

O well for the fortunate soul, 180. 

O what are heroes, prophets, men, 309. 

Of all wit's uses the main one, 289. 

Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship, 297. 

On a mound an Arab lay, 89. 

On bravely through the sunshine and the showers, 276. 

On prince or bride no diamond stone, 247. 

On two days it steads not to run from thy grave, 248. 

Once I wished I might rehearse, 172. 

One musician is sure, 203. 

Our eyeless bark sails free, 282. 

Over his head were the maple buds, 240. 



820 



INDEX OF FIBST LINES. 



Pale genius roves alone, 268. 
Parks and ponds are good by day, 283. 
Philosophers are lined with eyes within, 314. 
Put in, drive home the sightless wedges, 287. 

Quit the hut, frequent the palace, 239. 

Right upward on the road of fame, 253. 

Roomy Eternity, 288. 

Ruby wine is drunli by knaves, 231. 

Samson stark at Dagon's knee, 281. 

See yonder leafless trees against the sky, 282. 

Seek not the spirit, if it hide, 80. 

Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants, 286. 

Set not thy foot on graves, 31. 

She iiS gamesome and good, 194. 

She paints with white and red the moors, 282. 

She walked in flowers around my field, 290. 

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen, 242. 

Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, 273. 

Six thankful weeks, — and let it be, 313. 

Slighted Minerva's learned tongue, 278. 

Soft and softlier hold me, friends ! 220. 

Solar insect on the wing, 283. 

Some of your hurts you have cured, 241. 

Space is ample, east and west, 236. 

Spin the ball ! I reel, I burn, 249. 

Such another peerless queen, 290, 

Sudden gusts came full of meaning, 310. 

Teach me your mood, patient stars ! 277. 

Tell men what they knew before, 294. 

Test of the poet is knowledge of love, 243. 

Thanks to the morning light, 23. 

That book is good, 274. 

That each should in his house abide, 298. 

That you are fair or wise is vain, 32. 

The April winds are magical, 219. 

The archangel Hope, 296. 

The I rfmodean feat is mine, 277. 

The atom displaces all atoms beside, 275. 

The bard and mystic held me for their own, 297. 

The beggar begs by God's command, 289. 

The brook sings on, but sings in vain, 276. 

The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth, 287. 

The debt is paid, 221. 

The gale that wrecked you on the sand, 240. 

The green grass is bowing, 86. 

The heavy blue chain, 315. 

The land that has no song, 186. 

The living Heaven thy prayers respect, 236. 

The lords of Hfe, the lords of life, 228. 

The low December vault in June be lifted high, 2^ 

The mountain and the squirrel, 71. 

The mountain utters the same sense, 282. 

The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded, 277. 

The patient Pan, 279. 

Tlie prosperous and beautiful, 78. 

The rhyme of the poet, 109. 

The rocky nook with hill-tops three, 182. 

The rules to men made evident, 273, 

The sea is the road of the bold, 240. 

The sense of the world is short, 89. 



INDEX OF FIBST LINES. 321 



The solid, solid universe, 221. 

The South-wind brings, 130. 

The Sphinx is drowsy, 9. 

The sun atliwart the cloud thought it no sin, 281. 

The sun goes down, and with him takes, 196. 

The sun set, but set not his hope, 231. 

The tongue is prone to lose the way, 290. 

The water understands, 284. 

The wings of Time are black and white, 229. 

The word of the Lord by night, 174. 

Ths yeitarday doth never smile, 217. 

Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes, 18. 

There are beggars iu Iran and Araby, 263. 

They brought me rubies from the mine, 188. 

They put their finger on their lips, 300. 

They say, through patience, chalk, 247. 

Thine eyes still shined for me, though far, 88. 

Think me not unkind and rude, 105. 

This is he, who, felled by foes, 237. 

This passing moment is an edifice, 288. 

Thou foolish Hafiz ! Say, do churls, 247. 

Thou Shalt make thy house, 295. 

Thou Shalt not try, 276. 

Though loath to grieve, 71. 

Though love repine and reason chafe, 243. 

Thousand minstrels woke within me, 58. 

Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down, 249. 

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, 213. 

Thy trivial harp will never please, 106. 

To and fro the Genius flies, 293. 

To clothe the fiery thought, 239. 

To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem, 275. 

Trees in groves, 114. 

True Brahmin, in the morning meadows wet, 239. 

Try the might the Muse affords, 271. 

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene, 248. 

Venus, when her son was lost, 92. 

"Was never form and never face, 233. 

We are what we are made ; each following day, 300. 

"We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends, 159* 

We love the venerable house, 192. 

WeU and wisely said the Greek, 243. 

What all the books of ages paint, I have, 280. 

What care I, so they stand the same, 113. 

What central flowing forces, say, 281. 

When I was born, 121. 

When success exalts thy lot, 299. 

When the pine tosses its cones, 43. 

When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, 298. 

Who gave thee, O Beauty, 81. 

Who knows this or that ? 314. 

Who saw the hid beginnings, 304. 

Why should I keep holiday, 77. 

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill ? 238. 

Winters know, 193. 

Wise and polite, — and if I drew, 159. 

With beams December planets dart, 240. 

With the key of the secret he marches faster, 297. 

Would you know what joy is hid, 285. 

Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken, 296. 
You shall not be overbold, 200. 
You shall not love me for what daily spends, 293. 
Your picture smiles as first it smiled, 88. 



INDEX OF TITLES. 



[The titles in small capital letters are those of the principal divisions of the 
work ; those in lower case are of single poems, or the subdivisions of long 
poems.] 



A. H., 238. 

ASoKpvv vefiovrai Auava^ 244. 

Adirondacs, The, 159. 

Alcuin, From, 240. 

Alphonso of Castile, 27. 

Amulet, The, 88. 

Apology, The, 105. 

April, 219. 

Art, 235. 

Artist, 239. 

Astrsea, 75. 

Bacchus, 111. 

Beauty, 233. 

Berrying, 41. 

Birds, 283. 

Blight, 122. 

Bo(5ce, :i6tienne de la, 78. 

Bohemian Hymn, The, 298. 

Borrowing, 241. 

Boston, 182. 

Boston Hymn, read in Music Hall, 

January 1, 1863, 174. 
Botanist, 239. 
Brahma, 170. 

Casella, 243. 

Celestial Love, The, 101. 

Channing, W. H., Ode inscribed to, 71. 

Character, 231. 

Chartist's Complaint, The, 197. 

Circles, 287. 

Climacteric, 242. 

Compensation, 77, 229. 

Concord Hymn-, 139. 

Concord, Ode Simg in the Town Hall, 

July 4, 1857, 173. 
Culture, 232. 
Cupido, 221. 

Daemonic Love, The, 97. 
Day's Ration, The, 121, 
Days, 196. 
Destiny, 32. 
Dttge, 127. 



Each and All, 14. 
Earth, The, 282. 
Earth-Song, 36. 
Ellen, To, 86. 
Enchanter, The, 313. 
Epitaph, 246. 
Eros, 89, 300. 
Eva, To, 87, 
Excelsior, 240. 
Exile, The, 245, 315. 
Experience, 228. 

Fable, 71. 

Fame, 311. 

Fate, 171, 241. 

Flute, The, 248. 

Forbearance, 78. 

Forerunners, 79. 

Forester, 240. 

Fragments on Nature and Life, 278. 

Fragments on the Poet and thb 

Poetic Gift, 263. 
Freedom, 172. 
Friendship, 232, 247. 

Gardener, 239. 
Give all to Love, 84, 
Good-bye, 37. 
Grace, 299. 
Guy, 33. 

Hafiz, 243. 

Hafiz, From, 246. 

Hamatreya, 35. 

Harp, The, 203. 

Heri, Cras, Hodie, 242. 

Hermione, 89. 

Heroism, 231. 

Holidays, 1.. . 

Horoscope, 241. 

Humble-Bee, The, 39. 

Hush ! 238. 

Hymn sung at the Second Church, 

Boston, at the Ordination of Rev. 

Chandler Robbms, 192. 



324 



INDEX OF TITLES. 



Ibn Jemin, From, 248. 

In Memoriam, 224. 

Initial, Daemonic and Celestial Love, 

92. 
Initial Love, The, 92. 
Inscription for a Well in Memory of 

the Martyrs of the War, 315. 

J. W., To, 31. 

Last Farewell, The, 222. 

Letters, 188. 
Life, 287. 
Limits, 314. 
Love, 242. 

Maiden Speech of the ^ollan Harp, 

220. 
Manners, 234. 
May-Day, 143. 
May Morning, 304. 
Memory, 242. 
Merlin, 106. 
Merops, 113. 
Miracle, The, 305. 
Mithridates, 30. 
Monadnoc, 58. 
Monadnoc from afar, 310. 
Musketaquid, 124. 
My Garden, 197. 

Nature, 193, 194, 241, 278. 
Nature in Leasts, 244. 
Northman, 240. 
Nun's Aspiration, The, 217. 

Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing, 

71. 
Ode, sung in the Town Hall, Concord, 

July 4, 1857, 173. 
Ode to Beauty, 81. 
Omar Khay Yam, From, 247. 
Orator, 238. 

Pan, 309. 
Park, The, 78. 
Past, The, 221. 
Pericles, 243. 
Peter's Field, 302. 
Philosopher, 314. 
Poet, 239. 
Poet, The, 253. 
Politics, 230. 
Power, 242. 
Prayer, 299. 
Problem, The, IS. 

Qfateains, 238. 



Rhea, To, 38. 
Rhodora, The, 39. 
Romany Girl, The, 195. 
Rubies, 188. 

S. H., 240. 

Saadi, 114. 

Sacrilice, 243. 

Sea-Shore, 207. 

Shah, To the, 249. 

Shakspeare, 243. 

Snow-storm, The, 42. 

Solution, 189. 

Song of Nature, 209. 

Song of Seyd NimetoUah of Kuhistan, 

249. 
Sonnet of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 

South Wind, The, 310. 
Sphinx, The, 9. 
Spiritual Laws, 236. 
Sunrise, 285. 
Sursum Corda, 80. 
" Suum Cuique," 238. 

Terminus, 216. 

Test, The, 189. 

Thine Eyes still Shined, 88. 

Threnody, 130. 

Titmouse, The, 200. 

To Ellen, 86. 

To Eva, 87. 

To J. W., 31. 

To Rhea, 18. 

To the Shah, 249. 

Translations, 244. 

Two Rivers, 213. 

Unity, 236. 
Uriel, 21. 

Visit, The, 20. 
Volimtaries, 178. 

Waldeinsamkeit, 214. 

Walden, 307. 

Walk, The, 304. 

Water, 284. 

Waterfall, The, 307. 

Webster, 312. 

Woodnotes, 43. 

World-Soul, The, 23. 

Worship, 237. 

"Written at Rome, 1833, 301. 

Written in a Volume of Goethe, 313. 

"Written in Naples, March, 1833, 300. 

Xenophaues, 120. 



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